“Well! can you make it out?” The words startled me and looking up I saw Allan Ocheltree standing before me with a bucket of water in his hand. I could not realize for a few moments where I was. Looking down I saw in my hands the stake with the red blotches on that I had tried to read before I met the Professor. But that was long ago. I had but little idea how long, but it must have been tedious for Allan during the long period I was interviewing the Professor. I wondered how he had occupied himself, and why he had not disturbed the interview—though I was exceedingly grateful that he had not. Perhaps he had seen the Professor himself. I asked him. “What are you giving me?” said he, “I have seen no professor.” “But he has only this moment left me, perhaps he is still in sight,” said I, and I at once turned an eager gaze toward the sky overhead and directly descried a small black speck. “There! what’s that—I believe that’s the Professor.” “That,” said Allan coolly, “is a crane, you can see it moving toward the east. It is going home to Crane Island. What’s the matter, are you dreaming?” I briefly explained. “Well,” said Allan, “you must have fallen into a doze and got to dreaming. Don’t give yourself any worry about the way I have put in the time, I have been very agreeably occupied getting this bucket of water.” “Do you mean to say,” said I, “that all this interview has taken only”— “I mean to say that you have been sitting down there on that bank holding that piece of stick with the blurred keel marks on it, just long enough for me to walk to that rock yonder dip up a bucket of water and walk back. Here, time me with your watch and I will show you how long it took.” Whereupon he threw away the water in his bucket, walked to the rock, refilled it and walked back—in one minute and forty seconds! Thus may one get an idea of the quickness of thought. I had heard of it before, but never realized it so completely. As we went on with our preparations for our dinner I gave Allan some further account of what I seemed to have heard and seen, and he became quite interested in it. “I think,” said he, “you ought to write it down, and do it at once before you forget it. You had better go right back to your cottage at the other end of the lake. I’ll go with you, perhaps I can help you. I can write while you dictate.”