day called Korea, and that
is about all. That is as far as my reading goes. For instance, how
possibly, out of my present life's experience, could I know anything
about _kimchi_? Yet I know _kimchi_. It is a sort of sauerkraut. When
it is spoiled it stinks to heaven. I tell you, when I was Adam Strang, I
ate _kimchi_ thousands of times. I know good _kimchi_, bad _kimchi_,
rotten _kimchi_. I know the best _kimchi_ is made by the women of Wosan.
Now how do I know that? It is not in the content of my mind, Darrell
Standing's mind. It is in the content of Adam Strang's mind, who,
through various births and deaths, bequeathed his experiences to me,
Darrell Standing, along with the rest of the experiences of those various
other lives that intervened. Don't you see, Jake? That is how men come
to be, to grow, how spirit develops."

"Aw, come off," he rapped back with the quick imperative knuckles I knew
so well. "Listen to your uncle talk now. I am Jake Oppenheimer. I
always have been Jake Oppenheimer. No other guy is in my makings. What
I know I know as Jake Oppenheimer. Now what do I know? I'll tell you
one thing. I know _kimchi_. _Kimchi_ is a sort of sauerkraut made in a
country that used to be called Cho-Sen. The women of Wosan make the best
_kimchi_, and when _kimchi_ is spoiled it stinks to heaven. You keep out
of this, Ed. Wait till I tie the professor up.

"Now, professor, how do I know all this stuff about _kimchi_? It is not
in the content of my mind."

"But it is," I exulted. "I put it there."

"All right, old boss. Then who put it into your mind?"

"Adam Strang."

"Not on your tintype. Adam Strang is a pipe-dream. You read it
somewhere."

"Never," I averred. "The little I read of Korea was the war
correspondence at the time of the Japanese-Russian War."

"Do you remember all you read?" Oppenheimer queried.

"No."

"Some you forget?"

"Yes, but--"

"That's all, thank you," he interrupted, in the manner of a lawyer
abruptly concluding a cross-examination after having extracted a fatal
admission from a witness.

It was impossible to convince Oppenheimer of my sincerity. He insisted
that I was making it up as I went along, although he applauded what he
called my "to-be-continued-in-our-next," and, at the times they were
resting me up from the jacket, was continually begging and urging me to
run off a few more chapters.

"Now, professor, cut out that high-brow stuff," he