Chapter the Fifth — The Scales Fall From Mr. Preemby’s Eyes
§ 1
“The scales,” said Mr. Preemby, “have fallen from my eyes.”
He had chosen a seat upon the Common which commanded an extensive view of the town, the town crowned by the green cupolas of the Opera House and lying as though the houses had been shot out of a cart down the long incline to the Pantiles. Beyond were the wide distances of the Kentish hill country, blue and remote.
Christina Alberta waited for more.
“This experience,” said Mr. Preemby, speaking with an occasional h’rrmp; “all these experiences—difficult to relate. Naturally I think you are of a sceptical disposition—taking after your dear mother. She was very sceptical. Of psychic phenomena in particular. She said it was Nonsense. And when your dear mother said a thing was Nonsense, then it was Nonsense. It only made things disagreeable if you argued it was anything else. As for myself—always the open mind. No dogma either way. I just refrained.”
“But, Daddy, have you been having psychic experiences? How could you have psychic experiences down here?”
“Let me tell you the story in due order. I want you to see it as I saw it—in due order.”
“How did it begin?”
Mr. Preemby held up a propitiatory hand. “Please! In my own way,” he said.
Christina Alberta bit her lips and scrutinized the tranquil resolution of his profile. There was no hurrying him; he had to tell his tale as he had prepared it.
“I do not think,” said Mr. Preemby, “that mine is a very credulous sort of mind. It is true I am not given to argument. I do not say very much. But I think and observe. I think and observe and I have a kind of gift for judging people. I do not think I am a very easy man to deceive.
“And it is to be noted that I started the whole affair. It began at my suggestion. I do not know what put it into my head, but I do know that it was me started the whole thing going.
“You know, after your departure our little band at the Petunia Boarding House was reduced to just six persons, not counting the young gentleman from Cambridge who was, as Miss Rewster says, a Bird of Passage. Naturally the six of us felt rather drawn together. There were the two Miss Solbés, both very intelligent young ladies, and there were Mr. Hockleby and Mrs. Hockleby, and Miss Hockleby, and there was me. We were drawn together at lunch after you had gone off—it was a little showery and we had a fire in the drawing-room and Miss Solbé, the one with the glasses, tried to show me one of her Patiences. We got into quite an interesting argument about whether it was possible to will which card would turn up next. I have always inclined to the view that for certain people, people with the necessary gift, it was possible to do so, but Mr. Hockleby showed himself extremely sceptical in the matter. He said that if there was a card on the top of the pack ready to turn up, and if one willed that a different card should turn up, then that meant that one had really by sheer will force to re-manufacture two of the cards in the pack, make them over again, each into the other, make them blank, reprint them and everything. But I tried to explain to him that this is not philosophically sound because of predestination. If you were predestined to will that such a card should be on the top of the pack, then that card was also predestined to be there. He argued——”
“But is it necessary to tell me all this, Daddy, before we get to your psychic experience?”
“It is just to illustrate the fact that Mr. Hockleby was an extremely sceptical person.”
“Was that young man from Cambridge present at the discussions?”
“No-oh. No. He was not. He had probably gone down to the Garage to see if his Spare Part had come. He was always going down to the Garage to see about his Spare Part.”