eyes spread slowly open, and lift the earth’s entire atmosphere as much as an inch! That settled Brer Merlin. One never had any occasion to prove his facts, with these people; all he had to do was to state them. It never occurred to anybody to doubt the statement.

“Now, then,” I continued, “I could work both kinds of prophecy — the long and the short — if I chose to take the trouble to keep in practice; but I seldom exercise any but the long kind, because the other is beneath my dignity.

It is properer to Merlin’s sort — stump-tail prophets, as we call them in the profession. Of course, I whet up now and then and flirt out a minor prophecy, but not often — hardly ever, in fact. You will remember that there was great talk, when you