One evening last summer I arrived in Washington, registered at the Arlington Hotel, and went to my room. I read and smoked until ten o’clock; then, finding I was not yet sleepy, I thought I would take a breath of fresh air. So I went forth in the rain, and tramped through one street after another in an aimless and enjoyable way. I knew that Mr. O——, a friend of mine, was in town, and I wished I might run across him; but I did not propose to hunt for him at midnight, especially as I did not know where he was stopping. Towards twelve o’clock the streets had become so deserted that I felt lonesome; so I stepped into a cigar shop far up the Avenue, and remained there fifteen minutes listening to some bummers discussing national politics. Suddenly the spirit of prophecy came upon me, and I said to myself, “Now I will go out at this door, turn to the left, walk ten steps, and meet Mr. O—— face to face.’ I did it, too! I could not see his face, because he had an umbrella before it, and it was pretty dark, anyhow, but he interrupted the man he was walking and talking with, and I recognised his voice and stopped him. That I should step out there and stumble upon Mr. O—— was nothing, but that I should know beforehand that I was going to do it was a good deal. It is a very curious thing when you come to look at it. I stood far within the cigar shop when I delivered my prophecy; I walked about five steps to the door, opened it, closed it after me, walked down a flight of three steps to the sidewalk, then turned to the left and walked four or five more, and found my man. I repeat that in itself the thing was nothing; but to know it would happen so beforehand, wasn’t that really curious ? I have criticised absent people so often, and then discovered, to my humiliation, that I was talking with their relatives, that I have grown superstitious about that sort of thing and dropped it. How like an idiot one feels after a blunder like that! We are always mentioning people, and in that very instant they appear before us. We laugh, and say, ‘Speak of the devil,’ and so forth, and there we drop it, considering it an ‘accident.’ It is a cheap and convenient way of disposing of a grave and very puzzling mystery. The fact is, it does seem to happen too often to be an accident.