“Produce it!” cried the Irishman with a rich scorn. “I’ll produce it in a week if you’ll pay for the ink and paper.” “Would it have much authority?” asked Pym, sitting down. “Oh, authority!” said Moon lightly; “that depends on a fellow’s religion.” Dr. Pym jumped up again. “Our authority is based on masses of accurate detail,” he said. “It deals with a region in which things can be handled and tested. My opponent will at least admit that death is a fact of experience.” “Not of mine,” said Moon mournfully, shaking his head. “I’ve never experienced such a thing in all my life.” “Well, really,” said Dr. Pym, and sat down sharply amid a crackle of papers. “So we see,” resumed Moon, in the same melancholy voice, “that a man like Dr. Warner is, in the mysterious workings of evolution, doomed to such attacks. My client’s onslaught, even if it occurred, was not unique. I have in my hand letters from more than one acquaintance of Dr. Warner whom that remarkable man has affected in the same way. Following the example of my learned friends I will read only two of them. The first is from an honest and laborious matron living off the Harrow Road. “Mr. Moon, Sir,—Yes, I did throw a sorsepan at him. Wot then? It was all I had to throw, all the soft things being porned, and if your Docter Warner doesn’t like having sorsepans thrown at him, don’t let him wear his hat in a respectable woman’s parler, and tell him to leave orf smiling or tell us the joke.—Yours respectfully, Hannah Miles. “The other letter is from a physician of some note in Dublin, with whom Dr. Warner was once engaged in consultation. He writes as follows:— “Dear Sir,—The incident to which you refer is one which I regret, and which, moreover, I have never been able to explain. My own branch of medicine is not mental; and I should be glad to have the view of a mental specialist on my singular momentary and indeed almost automatic action. To say that I ‘pulled Dr. Warner’s nose,’ is, however, inaccurate in a respect that strikes me as important. That I punched his nose I must cheerfully admit (I need not say with what regret); but pulling seems to me to imply a precision of objective with which I cannot reproach myself. In comparison with this, the act of punching was an outward, instantaneous, and even natural gesture.— Believe me, yours faithfully, Burton Lestrange.