"
"Dear me," I said, "how very sad!" I could think of nothing else
to say at the moment.
THE MATERIALISATION OF CHARLES AND MIVANWAY
The fault that most people will find with this story is that it is
unconvincing. Its scheme is improbable, its atmosphere artificial.
To confess that the thing really happened--not as I am about to set
it down, for the pen of the professional writer cannot but adorn
and embroider, even to the detriment of his material--is, I am well
aware, only an aggravation of my offence, for the facts of life are
the impossibilities of fiction. A truer artist would have left
this story alone, or at most have kept it for the irritation of his
private circle. My lower instinct is to make use of it. A very
old man told me the tale. He was landlord of the Cromlech Arms,
the only inn of a small, rock-sheltered village on the north-east
coast of Cornwall, and had been so for nine and forty years. It is
called the Cromlech Hotel now, and is under new management, and
during the season some four coach-loads of tourists sit down each
day to table d'hote lunch in the low-ceilinged parlour.
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