don't deserve that you should. But I think you
will. May I explain? I'm afraid I've talked a great deal already
about my influenza, and I sha'n't be able to keep it out of my
explanation. Well, my weakest point--I told you this last year, but it
happens to be perfectly true that my weakest point--is my will.
Influenza, as you know, fastens unerringly on one's weakest point. It
doesn't attempt to undermine my imagination. That would be a forlorn
hope. I have, alas! a very strong imagination. At ordinary times my
imagination allows itself to be governed by my will. My will keeps it
in check by constant nagging. But when my will isn't strong enough
even to nag, then my imagination stampedes. I become even as a little
child. I tell myself the most preposterous fables, and--the trouble
is--I can't help telling them to my friends. Until I've thoroughly
shaken off influenza, I'm not fit company for any one. I perfectly
realize this, and I have the good sense to go right away till I'm quite
well again. I come here usually. It seems absurd, but I must confess
I was sorry last year when we fell into conversation. I knew I should
very soon be letting myself go, or, rather, very soon be swept away.
Perhaps I ought to have warned you; but--I'm a rather shy man. And
then you mentioned the subject of palmistry. You said you believed in
it. I wondered at that. I had once read Desbarolles's book about it,
but I am bound to say I thought the whole thing very great nonsense
indeed."

"Then," I gasped, "it isn't even true that you believe in palmistry?"

"Oh, no. But I wasn't able to tell you that. You had begun by saying
that you believed in palmistry, and then you proceeded to scoff at it.
While you scoffed I saw myself as a man with a terribly good reason for
NOT scoffing; and in a flash I saw the terribly good reason; I had the
whole story--at least I had the broad outlines of it--clear before me."

"You hadn't ever thought of it before?" He shook his head. My eyes
beamed. "The whole thing was a sheer improvisation?"

"Yes," said Laider, humbly, "I am as bad as all that. I don't say that
all the details of the story I told you that evening were filled in at
the very instant of its conception. I was filling them in while we
talked about palmistry in general, and while I was waiting for the
moment when the story would come in most effectively. And I've no
doubt I added some extra touches in the course of th