p the obvious corollary that I have invented
nothing? The answer can be only this: Nupton will not have read the
later passages of this memoir. Such lack of thoroughness is a serious
fault in any one who undertakes to do scholar's work. And I hope these
words will meet the eye of some contemporary rival to Nupton and be the
undoing of Nupton.

I like to think that some time between 1992 and 1997 somebody will have
looked up this memoir, and will have forced on the world his inevitable
and startling conclusions. And I have reasons for believing that this
will be so. You realise that the reading-room into which Soames was
projected by the Devil was in all respects precisely as it will be on
the afternoon of June 3, 1997. You realise, therefore, that on that
afternoon, when it comes round, there the self-same crowd will be, and
there Soames too will be, punctually, he and they doing precisely what
they did before. Recall now Soames' account of the sensation he made.
You may say that the mere difference of his costume was enough to make
him sensational in that uniformed crowd. You wouldn't say so if you had
ever seen him. I assure you that in no period could Soames be anything
but dim. The fact that people are going to stare at him, and follow him
around, and seem afraid of him, can be explained only on the hypothesis
that they will somehow have been prepared for his ghostly visitation.
They will have been awfully waiting to see whether he really would come.
And when he does come the effect will of course be--awful.

An authentic, guaranteed, proven ghost, but--only a ghost, alas! Only
that. In his first visit, Soames was a creature of flesh and blood,
whereas the creatures into whose midst he was projected were but ghosts,
I take it--solid, palpable, vocal, but unconscious and automatic ghosts,
in a building that was itself an illusion. Next time, that building and
those creatures will be real. It is of Soames that there will be but
the semblance. I wish I could think him destined to revisit the world
actually, physically, consciously. I wish he had this one brief escape,
this one small treat, to look forward to. I never forget him for long.
He is where he is, and forever. The more rigid moralists among you may
say he has only himself to blame. For my part, I think he has been
very hardly used. It is well that vanity should be chastened; and Enoch
Soames' vanity was, I admit, above the average, and called for special
trea