at I was wrong; for the thing that came
next out of my pocket was a box of matches. Then I saw fire, which is
stronger even than steel, the old, fierce female thing, the thing we all
love, but dare not touch.

The next thing I found was a piece of chalk; and I saw in it all the art
and all the frescoes of the world. The next was a coin of a very modest
value; and I saw in it not only the image and superscription of our own
Caesar, but all government and order since the world began. But I have
not space to say what were the items in the long and splendid procession
of poetical symbols that came pouring out. I cannot tell you all the
things that were in my pocket. I can tell you one thing, however, that I
could not find in my pocket. I allude to my railway ticket.

XVI. The Dragon's Grandmother

I met a man the other day who did not believe in fairy tales. I do not
mean that he did not believe in the incidents narrated in them--that he
did not believe that a pumpkin could turn into a coach. He did, indeed,
entertain this curious disbelief. And, like all the other people I
have ever met who entertained it, he was wholly unable to give me an
intelligent reason for it. He tried the laws of nature, but he soon
dropped that. Then he said that pumpkins were unalterable in ordinary
experience, and that we all reckoned on their infinitely protracted
pumpkinity. But I pointed out to him that this was not an attitude we
adopt specially towards impossible marvels, but simply the attitude we
adopt towards all unusual occurrences. If we were certain of miracles
we should not count on them. Things that happen very seldom we all leave
out of our calculations, whether they are miraculous or not. I do not
expect a glass of water to be turned into wine; but neither do I expect
a glass of water to be poisoned with prussic acid. I do not in ordinary
business relations act on the assumption that the editor is a fairy; but
neither do I act on the assumption that he is a Russian spy, or the lost
heir of the Holy Roman Empire. What we assume in action is not that the
natural order is unalterable, but simply that it is much safer to bet
on uncommon incidents than on common ones. This does not touch the
credibility of any attested tale about a Russian spy or a pumpkin turned
into a coach. If I had seen a pumpkin turned into a Panhard motor-car
with my own eyes that would not make me any more inclined to assume
that the same thing would hap