He rattled off “Signor Giovanni Bocci,” and the rest of the copperplate legend! I wonder what the inquiry clerk would have thought had he overheard the whole of Karl’s story. Afterwards, when steeled to the marvel of it all, I did not hesitate to prod the dull wits of the heavy tribe which Emerson describes as “only understanding pitch-forks and the cry of ‘Fire!’” But that evening I forebore, lest we should be turned out of the hotel. Indeed, that monstrous British dread of a “scene” induced me to beseech Karl not to go wandering off through space until the conditions were more private. We had four hours to spare, so we dined, strolled to Hyde Park and back, and finally awaited in the hotel vestibule the advent of the two ladies. It was the height of the London season. One of the many fine days which the world’s capital manages to smuggle in between layers of fog and sheeted storm was drawing to a close. And how majestic, how radiantly calm, is London at such an hour! The purple haze of evening glorifies the harsh lines of myriad roofs; the long rows of twinkling lights might have been designed by Whistler; beneath the opulent robe of the great city one can hear its tremendous heart beating peacefully. It was Grier’s first adult experience of London, and I was certain that it affected him powerfully. He told me later that he was tempted many times to expand those awesome caverns of his brain, and seek to understand with their seemingly immeasurable receptive capacity the giant influences at work amidst that vast aggregation of humanity. But he resisted successfully, feeling somewhat awed, even a little frightened, by the belief that he alone, among the passing thousands, was endowed with almost omniscient knowledge of the actions and utterances of his fellow-men. Not of their thoughts. There was something of that to come--a grand expansion of that sympathetic transmission of ideas vaguely known to men and animals since the Spirit moved over the face of the waters, and the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were designed. But not yet. The most sceptical of scientists could not accuse Karl of flights of imagination, for he recorded naught save positive facts of contemporary occurrence. That, to me, was the most startling feature of his sixth sense. There scarcely exists a man or woman of any real intelligence who has not, at one time or another, communicated the unspoken thought to another at a distance. Truly, this comparatively general attribute of mankind is a far more stupendous and less comprehensible achievement than Karl’s telegnomy. But, as Hooper said about the wheel and the use of fire, we soon become surfeited with wonders.