Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 September 1895 — CURING BROWN OF SKEPTICISM. [ARTICLE]

CURING BROWN OF SKEPTICISM.

BROWN was the sworn foe of superstition. He derided all the good old saws, and he jeered at omens. It was his one hohby, this warfare with the believers in signs and portents. There was no mercy in him for 4he credulous. He laughed at broken mirrors; nothing pleased him better than to see the new moon over his left shoulder; the ever-recurring terror of thirteen at table he had reduced to a mathematical problem to be solved through the law of chances and the statistics of life Insurance actuaries. Three morhlngs in the week he -put on his right shoe first; on the other four the” left preceded tbfe right Last but not least, he had taken lodgings in a rather poor neighborhood, because It abounded in white cats, and the likelihood of one of the unlucky animals crossing his path was thereby greatly Increased. These things did not add to his popularity. Most men shKPoed him. Sm did some women, though their ayersiyh to him interested no one but fffemselves, for Brown would have been a misogynist had he been able to cherish two great hatreds simultaneously. Sometimes, though, he longed for more friends of his own sex. He had but two or threp, and he could not preach to them always. There was a point at which they rebelled, and when that point was reached Brown felt alone in the world. So at last, through growing dread of Isolation, he came to spare these two or three, which proves that the man of one idea may learn in the school of bitter experience. Even when, out of the goodness of their hearts, they now and then cleared the lists for him to break a lance in his favorite cause he declined the challenge—sometimes. And then the others began to fear for his health. “Your trouble, Brown, is that you lack an actual test,” observed Ferguson on one of these occasions of combat declined. “You’re theoretical; you’ve never faced a ghost, nor heard a supernatural voice. Now, if you only could have something uncanny happen." Ferguson paused, partly because he thought he had said enough in the way of encouragement, but more because his cigar demanded attention. Randall nodded approval of the curtailed sentiment. The three had been dining together and were lingering over the coffee. i - “No; I’ve escaped so far,” Brown answered slowly; “at least—well, nothing has occurred to shake my common sense. Truth is, though, I may be able to tell you something convincing in a few days. Last night I had what some fools would call a warning.” “What?” cried Randall. “You had?” asked Ferguson, incredulously. “I had a dream,” Brown continued. “I don’t know where the scene was laid, or whether there was any. But I held a piege of newspaper, with edged jagged, as if it had been torn from the sheet On one side was what seemed to be an account of a curious accident to a Sound steamer, which was run into by a schooner, whose jibboom pierced the wall of a stateroom and impaled the occupant. The name of the steamer was missing.” “And the passenger’s name?” queried nandall. “It was not to be found in the part of the article before me.” “Sure it was a Sound steamer?" Ferguson asked. “Yes; something in the context made that clear. There was no hint of the date. I turned the paper over, but found on the other side nothing but part of a table of stock quotations. Great Eastern common had closed at 20—that’s all I remember to have noticed.” ‘Td like to see the stuff there, even In a dream,” said Ferguson, feelingly. He ventured into Wall street occasionally. “No doubt you would,” said Randall. “But, Brown, where’s the warning? Are you going down East?” “Yes. I'm due In Boston next Saturday morning. And I always go by

boat.” “Tills time, too?” “Certainly," responded Brown, with dignity; “this time of all times.” “Well, I'd stay ashore, If I were yon,” Randall counseled. “As a boy I had my fill of trying to see If things wpre loaded.” The skeptic smiled a superior smile. ? “I hare already arranged for. the trip," he announced. “This morning X reserved a stateroom on the Yankoe-

land—she's next Friday’s boat. In short. I propose to prove so conclusively the ” __ “Precisely,” said Ferguson, rising Ize what you expect to prove, old man. I know you think it too good a chance to be wasted; but, just as a friend of yours, I'd get out an Injunction to keep you from going—l would, indeed—if it were not for that quotation of Great Eastern at twenty. In view of such a freak of midnight phantasy I guess I won’t have you dragged into court But you ought to be fined for dreaming such a tuing and unduly exciting the imagination of the honest poor, who’ve put good money into that stock.” Brown’s friends bade him goodnight at the door of the restaurant. “Well, what do you think?” said Ferguson. to Randall, as they walked uptown together. “Ob, If anybody else had bad such a dream I'd be worried,” said Randall to Ferguson. “But Brown won’t be. even frightened—more's the pity. By the way, he has loaned me one of'his scientific anti-ghost books. I’m going to read it as a personal favor to him—that is, If I can. It’s heavy enough, though, to make me doubt my ability to finish it. And he took a tighter grip on the neatly wrapped volume he had tucked under one ariri. • To Randall, at work in his office the following Saturday afternoon, appeared Ferguson, who thrust a newspaper into his hand and dropped into a chair beside his desk. “Look at the stock table!” gasped the caller. “Urn! what of it?” Randall asked. “Great Eastern at 20.” “So I observe. Insiders have boosted the stuff, that’s all.” “Now read an item on the first page, third column, about half way down." “All right,” said the other. “Hullo!’’ he added a moment later, “that’s odd, isn’t it?” “ ‘Oddi’ It’s terrible: poor Brown!” “It’s odd, very odd.” Randall repeat- ~ ed. ,“So the Yankeeland was in collision, eh? Nothing said about anybody being injured.” ~ “They’ve Suppressed that parTT” groaned Ferguson. “Poor old Brown! Can’t we do something? Let’s go to his rooms; they may have had word there.” “Very well,” said Randall, rising and putting on his hat; “I’m with you. But, if I were you, I wouldn’t give up hope by any manner of means.” As the pair approached the house in which Brown had lodgings that gentleman opened the door and came down the steps. He carried a valise. Ferguson gave a cry of relief at sight of him; Randall laughed softly. “You didn’t take the boat, then?” ho asked. “No; I was er-er-detained,” Brown stammered. “I’m going to Forty-sec-ond street now to catch a trains* “Have you seen the papers?” Ferguson put in. “Great Eastern run up and the Yankeeland run down—notice it?” “I’ve read the items,” Brown confessed. “Curious coincidence, so to speak, wasn’t it? I—l—don’t know just what to make of it.” “Oh, I’ll be honest with you,” responded Brown, with an effort. “I wasn’t actually detained—that is, 1 might have caught the boat. But it had occurred to me—l had four days to think things over, you know—that, perhaps, by staying in town and waiting to see if the Yankeeland met with an accident, I’d have just as good a chance to prove the falsity of the omen.” “Do you call it proved false?” “Um! Hardly, hardly,” said Brown. “An unfortunate incident, very unfortunate, I must say. It has almost unsettled my convictions.” And he glanced about him nervously. “You’ll be taking a car at the corner,” said Randail. “We’ll toddle .along with you.” The three had advanced hardly fifty feet when Brown dashed from between his companions and ran to the gutter. “Look out!” he cried. “Don’t you see those painters at work overhead? They’re on a ladder. Don’t walk under it—it’s unlucky.” No sooner had this peril been avoided than he dropped to his knees, and fell to picking at a crack in the sidewalk. “Horribly unlucky co pass that,” he explained, lifting a pin from the crevice. “So I’ve been told,” said Randall, with a chuckle. Ferguson lacked words appropriate to the occasion. They halted at the corner, but Brown protended not to see the first car which passed. The others saw it very plainly. It was No. 13. They put their friend aboard the next, which proved to have a number above suspicion. • “This affair beats me,” said Ferguson, soberly. “What ails Brown, auywayT’ “Nothing much,” replied Randall, “only he’s gone from one extreme to the other; he didn’t believe anything; now he believes everything; that’s all.” “I don’t blame him—after such an escape.” “You think the spirits warned him?” “Who else?” “One Brown.” “He warned himself? Impossible!” “Not at all; his own memory did the business.” “Memory of something to happen in the future! That’s nonsensq.” “No more nonsense than his new-born fears.” “I give up the conundrum. What’s the answer?”

“I can’t tell you in.a word. You recollect the book he lent me the other night, don’t you ? Well, he’d been reading it the evening before—at least so he told me—and that was the evening preceding the vision. When I got heme I took off the old newspaper in which the book had been wrapped, and fell to skimming—skipping about, you understand. Pretty soon I found a piece of paper stuck between two pages, evi-

' . ' ' ’ *l, . ; —e*- ■ dently to tnark the placa where Brown had stopped. Not being much interested In the book, I began to look over the slip—and what do you suppose it was? The very fragmant Brown had seen in his dream!” “Eh?” “Yes, sir; the very same. Then I thought < f the paper, which had been around the book, picked it up from the floor- —” “Go oh, man; go on!” cried Ferguson. “And found that the small piece just fitted a hole in it. That newspaper was nearly six months old, as it had to be to contain a quotation of Great Eastern at 20. It was clear enough what had happened. Brown, whenfFedore off the slip to stick in the book, reail both sides of it without really knowing w r hat he was doing. Their. he must have dreamed about It—and you know as well as I do what resulted’.” ~ “But the accident to the steamer—it was a Sound steamer-^-” “Puget sound. The item was reprinted from a Western paper, find was duly credited. There has been a curious coincidence—that’s a fact—out the warning theory is rather spoiled.” The pair strode on in silence for a time. At last Ferguson turned toward his companion with a question: “When are you going to tell Brown?” “Not for some time,” said Randall, decisively. "Nature has a way of averaging up things. Brown has a lot of believing to do to make up for his unbelief. You wouldn’t have me interfering prematurely with the benevolent processes of nature, would you?”—N- Y. Times.