this diffidence: they could have cured it forty-nine times in fifty.

Well, when the priest had been droning for three hours, and the good king polishing the evidences, and the sick were still pressing forward as plenty as ever, I got to feeling intolerably bored. I was sitting by an open window not far from the canopy of state. For the five hundredth time a patient stood forward to have his repulsivenesses stroked; again those words were being droned out: “they shall lay their hands on the sick” — when outside there rang clear as a clarion a note that enchanted my soul and tumbled thirteen worthless centuries about my ears: “Camelot Weekly Hosannah and Literary Volcano! — latest irruption — only two cents — all about the big miracle in the Valley of Holiness!” One greater