Up till then he had been as sober and hard-working a little
man as ever stood four foot ten in his shoes and weighed in at seven stone
four. But above all he was an expert in rubber tyres; he knew them, I had
almost said, by instinct.
The Puddlesby Psychical Society believes in the Transmigration of Souls. As
I am not a member myself I'm afraid that that is all I can tell you about
it. It is a little difficult at first sight, perhaps, to see the connection
between Transmigration and rubber tyres, but if you will have patience I
think I can promise to show you _that_ at least.
One night our Mr. Bowles came home late from a meeting of the P.P.S., fell
asleep at once and had what he regarded as a "transmigratory experience in
a retrogressive sense." The world was not the world he knew. He perceived
that it was sundown on the 8th of August, 1215, that he was no longer plain
Bowles, but rather Sir Bors the Bowless, Knight of the Artful Arm, and
known to his intimates as "The Fire-eater"; that he had just been
challenged to fight his seven hundred and forty-seventh fight, and (for the
seven hundred and forty-seventh time) he had accepted. He soon added to the
stock of his information the fact that, as the challenged party, he had the
choice of time, place and weapons.
He was naturally a little perturbed at first, for the most formidable
warrior that he ever remembered fighting was his little sister, whose hair
he had pulled when they were children, and the biggest thing he had ever
killed was undoubtedly the hen that he had run over on the Boodle Road.
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