okels here think of it if I were to tell them
my experience? Let me go to someone who can understand and advise.

April 25.--I was laid up in bed for two days after my incredible
adventure in the cavern. I use the adjective with a very definite
meaning, for I have had an experience since which has shocked me almost
as much as the other. I have said that I was looking round for someone
who could advise me. There is a Dr. Mark Johnson who practices some
few miles away, to whom I had a note of recommendation from Professor
Saunderson. To him I drove, when I was strong enough to get about, and I
recounted to him my whole strange experience. He listened intently, and
then carefully examined me, paying special attention to my reflexes and
to the pupils of my eyes. When he had finished, he refused to discuss
my adventure, saying that it was entirely beyond him, but he gave me
the card of a Mr. Picton at Castleton, with the advice that I should
instantly go to him and tell him the story exactly as I had done
to himself. He was, according to my adviser, the very man who was
pre-eminently suited to help me. I went on to the station, therefore,
and made my way to the little town, which is some ten miles away.
Mr. Picton appeared to be a man of importance, as his brass plate was
displayed upon the door of a considerable building on the outskirts of
the town. I was about to ring his bell, when some misgiving came into my
mind, and, crossing to a neighbouring shop, I asked the man behind the
counter if he could tell me anything of Mr. Picton. "Why," said he, "he
is the best mad doctor in Derbyshire, and yonder is his asylum." You can
imagine that it was not long before I had shaken the dust of Castleton
from my feet and returned to the farm, cursing all unimaginative pedants
who cannot conceive that there may be things in creation which have
never yet chanced to come across their mole's vision. After all,
now that I am cooler, I can afford to admit that I have been no more
sympathetic to Armitage than Dr. Johnson has been to me.

April 27. When I was a student I had the reputation of being a man of
courage and enterprise. I remember that when there was a ghost-hunt at
Coltbridge it was I who sat up in the haunted house. Is it advancing
years (after all, I am only thirty-five), or is it this physical malady
which has caused degeneration? Certainly my heart quails when I think
of that horrible cavern in the hill, and the certainty that