s were possible even
with matches. He extended a hand and scowled at it in the dark. "Let
there be a match in that hand," he said. He felt some light object fall
across his palm, and his fingers closed upon a match.

After several ineffectual attempts to light this, he discovered it was a
safety-match. He threw it down, and then it occurred to him that he
might have willed it lit. He did, and perceived it burning in the midst
of his toilet-table mat. He caught it up hastily, and it went out. His
perception of possibilities enlarged, and he felt for and replaced the
candle in its candlestick. "Here! _you_ be lit," said Mr. Fotheringay,
and forthwith the candle was flaring, and he saw a little black hole in
the toilet-cover, with a wisp of smoke rising from it. For a time he
stared from this to the little flame and back, and then looked up and
met his own gaze in the looking glass. By this help he communed with
himself in silence for a time.

"How about miracles now?" said Mr. Fotheringay at last, addressing his
reflection.

The subsequent meditations of Mr. Fotheringay were of a severe but
confused description. So far, he could see it was a case of pure willing
with him. The nature of his experiences so far disinclined him for any
further experiments, at least until he had reconsidered them. But he
lifted a sheet of paper, and turned a glass of water pink and then
green, and he created a snail, which he miraculously annihilated, and
got himself a miraculous new tooth-brush. Somewhen in the small hours he
had reached the fact that his will-power must be of a particularly rare
and pungent quality, a fact of which he had certainly had inklings
before, but no certain assurance. The scare and perplexity of his first
discovery was now qualified by pride in this evidence of singularity and
by vague intimations of advantage. He became aware that the church clock
was striking one, and as it did not occur to him that his daily duties
at Gomshott's might be miraculously dispensed with, he resumed
undressing, in order to get to bed without further delay. As he
struggled to get his shirt over his head, he was struck with a brilliant
idea. "Let me be in bed," he said, and found himself so. "Undressed," he
stipulated; and, finding the sheets cold, added hastily, "and in my
nightshirt--no, in a nice soft woollen nightshirt. Ah!" he said with
immense enjoyment. "And now let me be comfortably asleep...."

He awoke at his usual hour an