Page:The Ball and the Cross.djvu/143

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Grassley-in-the-Hole
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sleepily. Turnbull struck the table with a sudden hand.

“Good Lord in heaven!” he cried——

“Who does not exist,” murmured MacIan.

“Good Lord in heaven!” thundered Turnbull, without regarding the interruption. “Do you really mean to sit there and say that you, like anybody else, would not recognise the difference between a natural occurrence and a supernatural one—if there could be such a thing? If I flew up to the ceiling——”

“You would bump your head badly,” cried MacIan, suddenly starting up. “One can’t talk of this kind of thing under a ceiling at all. Come outside! Come outside and ascend into heaven!”

He burst the door open on a blue abyss of evening and they stepped out into it: it was suddenly and strangely cool.

“Turnbull,” said MacIan, “you have said some things so true and some so false that I want to talk; and I will try to talk so that you understand. For at present you do not understand at all. We don’t seem to mean the same things by the same words.”

He stood silent for a second or two and then resumed.

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