And then came that final catastrophic dream—that there was an old shoebox in his mother’s closet filled to the brim with money that had never seen a bank. The following morning Peter told this dream in every detail to his wife, and she went directly to the closet and found the box with money in it, just as Peter had dreamed.

  After that, there was a brief period of hilarious living, and then suddenly the bubble burst. Nothing seemed to go right, and when Mr. and Mrs. Peter Berbeck were finally haled into court and put up for trial their period of riotous living was definitely at an end. Peter told his story, and his wife told hers, but neither story seemed to be the right one, and Judge McIlrath of the Federal Court in Chicago frowned sternly before pronouncing sentence, and said, “It is almost inconceivable that seemingly educated persons could postulate such nonsense. The facts in this matter are plain. The evidence is without question, the crime deliberate. These preposterous stories are an affront to the dignity of this court, an insult to the intelligence of the jury.” Old Mrs. Berbeck would have enjoyed that, but she, poor lady, was quite dead, unless we agree with those open-minded persons who believe that perhaps some of us never really die.

  Trying blindly to seek a way out of the dilemma in which he found himself, Peter Berbeck claimed that things began to happen shortly after his mother’s death.

  “What things?” demanded the prosecution.

  “Well, I had a dream,” said Peter. “One night I dreamed that my mother appeared to me and took me by the hand and led me down into the cellar. The machine was there.”

  “You admit that, then, do you?”

  “Yes,” said Peter, not knowing why he should not. “My mother had friends among the—well, among criminals—and knew where she could get those things.”

  “I’m afraid that cannot be admitted as evidence,” said the prosecution. “Your mother is dead. We can hardly accept statements of this kind. The machine was there. Please go on with your dream, if you feel that it may help to explain the evidence against you.”

  “Well,” resumed Peter. “I dreamed she led me down into the cellar and put my hands on the machine. I did as she told me. I put the machine together and seemed to work it. Then I was led back upstairs to bed. In the morning I saw that the machine had actually been put completely together.”

  “You would have this court believe the machine was not then together before that morning? Have you any outside evidence to support that contention?”

  Peter shook his head. “I found oil on my pajamas once or twice,” he added thoughtfully.

  “You suggest to this court that this actually took place? That you did all this in your sleep?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you say you had this dream more than once?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “But even if this court accepts such preposterous nonsense, can you think of any reason why your dead mother should be concerned in this matter?”

  Peter Berbeck choked and said, “No.” Obviously he could not say that his mother had very likely suspected and then found out about the pilfering of her bank balance, had then determined to wreak some sort of vengeance, had gone out and got the machine piecemeal into the house, and then trusted to luck (or did dreams come under some other head? And were they after all dreams?) to bring about their punishment. Was it not Shakespeare who once said that the whirligig of time brings about its own revenge?

  Mrs. Peter Berbeck had told much the same kind of story. Nor could she explain by saying that perhaps the old lady had guessed about the arsenic in her coffee and tried to get through from another world. She had presence of mind enough to realize that the relation of the dreams had had a strongly prejudicial effect without the further suggestion of something supernatural. Like her husband, she was forced to keep silence and watch helplessly while the amazing web of evidence appeared against them.

  Even the defense counsel thought that it would be best to leave old Mrs. Berbeck among the dead, where she properly belonged, despite a taxi driver who turned up to volunteer that he remembered having driven the old lady back and forth on one occasion and distinctly recalled her carrying large bundles that might have been pieces of a machine. And the tale of the burnt fragment of letter about plates was discounted at once. Dreams might have a place, but the Federal Court of Chicago was not that place.

  When Peter Berbeck went on to tell about finding the box in his mother’s closet also by the suggestion conveyed to him by his mother in a dream, the jury began to grow restless. Both defense and prosecution concentrated on the plates—where had the Berbecks hidden them? If they could be turned over to this court, it might not go so hard with the Berbecks. But both Peter and his wife denied any knowledge whatever of the plates, and a thorough search of their house failed to reveal any sign of them. It was hardly to be expected that a certain smooth gentleman who had loaned the plates to old Mrs. Berbeck, and who had since retrieved them by the simple method of entering the Berbeck house by night through a cellar window and making off with them two nights before the Berbecks were placed under arrest, would come forward and tell his story. Certainly not. There is, after all, such a matter as preserving one’s own skin even at the expense of others.

  From the point-of-view of any outsider, the case was ludicrous indeed, and it was even more astounding that any court could be bothered to listen to even a curtailed version of the Berbeck’s stories. But the Federal Court did—after all, it was a first offense—despite the clarity of the case against Peter Berbeck and his wife. The evidence was definite, imposing, and impregnable.

  There was the payment on the car.

  There was a payment to the grocer.

  There was the payment to the milkman.

  There were payments to the telephone and gas companies.

  And finally that attempt to deposit the money at the bank.

  There was nothing to be done. The court had never before listened to such preposterous explanations. These various payments now in evidence were conclusive. They had been made in counterfeit money, quite recently manufactured; there was a press for the printing of counterfeit money in the cellar, and the fingerprints of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Berbeck were all over it; and finally, there was the box of printed money still kept in what had been the old lady’s closet. The failure of the accused to turn over the counterfeit plates would only make their penalty the more severe.

  It was inconceivable that the court should be expected to give even momentary credence to the absurd contention of the accused that they had gone to the press in their sleep, that they had found the counterfeit money in the old lady’s room after a dream, that they did not know it was counterfeit, that they did not now know and never had known where the plates were.

  The court sentenced Peter Berbeck and his wife to ten years as guests of the Federal Government for counterfeiting and passing counterfeit currency of the nation. Judge Mcllrath’s gavel had absolutely no effect upon the convulsive chuckle that rang through the courtroom when sentence was pronounced. Nor could its source subsequently be traced; there was no old woman in the courtroom, and the laughter was indisputably that of an old woman.

  The Lilac Bush

  The day was hot for May, and Mrs. Jones came to the door of the house to look at her children playing about the lilac bush across the road. Mrs. Jones was a thin, gaunt woman, with stem gray eyes. Just now an ordinary house apron hung loosely about her, and her hair was somewhat unkempt, as farmers* wives* hair is likely to be. She sighed as she brushed her hand across her forehead, and, raising her eyes, she gazed long and earnestly at her children. They were standing quietly together. Ada was holding her younger brother’s hand. Both were gazing in rapt attention at the lilac bush.

  The lilac bush stood about seventy feet from the road on the top of Springfield Hill. It was a very large bush, and it almost covered one side of the old log building that was decaying just behind it. It stood in soggy land, and here and there in the thick tufts of grass, little pools of water could be seen. Adjoining it was a thing strip of woodland, and beyond that, green fields stretched away into the distance.

  Mrs. Jones moved uneasily. “Ada!” she called stridently.

  But Ada apparently did not hear; nor did her brother. Both remained standing as before, with their backs to their mother. Mrs. Jones thought that something had got into the log ruins—a rabbit, perhaps, or a squirrel. Or maybe the children were playing a new game; that was more like it. She shrugged her shoulders and returned to her work.

  At intervals she came to the door and looked out. The children were playing. But when she looked over at them an hour after, they stood again looking attentively at the lilac bush.

  “Ada!” Mrs. Jones called.

  This time the child turned slightly, as if under stress, and turned back as quickly. Mrs. Jones walked swiftly to the gate and crossed the road. A car with a California license shot by, and she stopped a moment to look after it. It was not often she saw them from so far away; still, yesterday one from Maine had come through, and a week ago, one from somewhere in Canada. Then she began picking her way carefully over the soggy land to where the children were standing. The children turned before she reached them. Hand in hand they watched her come on.

  “Mamma,” called Ada. “That’s our bush, isn’t it?” She pointed to the lilac bush.

  “Of course,” said Mrs. Jones, almost slipping from a dump of grass into a pool of water. “Of course. Your grandpa planted that bush when he was a boy and lived in the old cabin his dad built.”

  “Well, somebody was picking our lilacs. It looked like a man, Mamma; I couldn’t see.”

  “Man,” said the boy, looking at her out of great blue eyes, opened wide. “Man,” he repeated, nodding his head vigorously. His chubby face was flushed.

  Mrs. Jones eyed her children, frowning. “What are you talking about? The sun’s got you, I guess. You better come into the house and rest. You’re tearing around here all day, and you need it. Come on.”

  The children obediently followed Mrs. Jones across the road and into the house. The boy was still very young, and he could just walk. Mrs. Jones noticed that Ada was getting too stout for her age.

  They sat in the kitchen and watched their mother work. After a time Ada sat at the window and looked over at the bush. Her brother came over and sat beside her. Mrs. Jones stood with her arms akimbo and watched them for a moment. Then she stepped lightly over to them and bent her head to look out with them. Ada looked up at her mother.

  “He’s there again, Mamma. He’s picking our lilacs.”

  “Man,” said the boy, pounding the window with a small pudgy fist.

  “What’s the matter with you, Ada?” asked Mrs. Jones. “There’s no one there.”

  “Yes, there is, Mamma. An old man with a cane. He’s picking the lilacs, our lilacs. Stop him, Mamma. Why don’t you stop him?”

  Mrs. Jones glanced curiously at Ada, and from her to the boy. She felt a sudden tightening at her heart. Then she went out of the door and started across the road. She picked her way over the soggy land as before and drew up at the lilac bush. There was no one there. The wind went through the bush with a curious rustling sound Mrs. Jones looked at the bush and down to the ground. There were no footprints but those of the children, and she looked puzzled. Behind her a car went past, and immediately after, another. Mrs. Jones reached up and pulled down one of the tall, thin branches. Among the leaves at the very top of the branch a broken twig stuck out. She looked at it in amazement. She had picked no lilacs for the last three days—and this twig was freshly broken, so freshly that she could discern the faintly glistening beads of sap that oozed from the broken wood. She glanced suddenly back at the house. The children sat as before, watching her. She pulled down another branch with an effort—she had to stand on tiptoe, and then she could barely reach it. From the top of this branch, too, a blossom had been freshly broken. She looked around her suspiciously. There was nothing that the children might have stood on—nor were the broken blossoms in evidence. She went back to the house, walking slowly.

  At evening Mrs. Jones took the children and started down the road for the cows. On the way they had to pass one of the three cemeteries on Springfield Hill. There was a lurid flare of red in the western sky, as if someone had lighted great bonfires along the horizon. Mrs. Jones looked over the trees at the dying day, and back again. From down the road came the faintly acrid scent of last year’s dry leaves burning.

  Suddenly she stopped dead. Out of the corner of her eye she caught an incongruous color in the cemetery. She shook Ada, taking hold of her shoulder.

  “How many times have I told you not to go into the cemetery, Ada?”

  “I didn’t.” Ada looked at her mother in childish astonishment.

  “Don’t lie to me, Ada. Who put the lilacs on grandpa’s grave if you didn’t?” She shook her again.

  “I didn’t, Mamma.” Ada was close to tears.

  But Mrs. Jones was no longer looking at Ada. Her eyes were fastened on a lilac blossom, half buried in the earth on the grave and at the same moment she saw herself standing on tiptoe, striving to reach upward toward the broken twig. Almost roughly she pulled Ada with her as she moved on, a sudden paleness in her cheeks. She turned and called after the boy.

  “Come on, boy. Come on.”

  “Man!” said the boy suddenly, throwing a stone with unexpected vigor in the direction of the lilac bush.

  A Matter of Sight

  Perhaps you have been in Vienna?”

  “Yes,” I said slowly, “I have been in Vienna.”

  For a moment there was silence in the car. I took another good look at the man who had chosen to sit beside me rather than to take one of the many empty seats. He wore a well-trimmed Van Dyke beard, which was as black as the long wavy hair on his uncovered head. His nose was sharply aquiline. His eyes were hidden by very large, black glasses, attached to a somewhat blacker cord of an expensive make. He wore a long dark cape, buttoned tightly about the neck, where a black silk muffler stuck out. His left hand rested on the gold top of a very fine walking-stick which I would have given much to possess; the tapering fingers of his right were engaged in tapping a cigarette on the sill of the open window.

  “Then you have seen the famous Hapsburg Palace?”

  “Oh! yes,” said I. “That is what most Americans go to Vienna for.”

  “Yes I suppose it is so. That and beer—very fine beer in Vienna. You have tasted it, of course? And eaten bologna, IT1 wager.”

  “Both.” I laughed.

  “You liked the palace?”

  “Very much. A sumptuous place. I just read somewhere that part of it was recently destroyed by fire.”

  “An unfortunate occurrence.”

  “Very. It’s really a magnificent structure.”

  “And did you promenade in the park?”

  “Quite right.” I laughed again. “Routine for the American tourist.”,

  “There are many things to see in the park.”

  “Stately trees.”

  He waved them away with the hand that held the cigarette. He frowned a little.

  “Have you ever heard of second sight?”

  “Second sight? Yes, certainly.”

  “And of Argazila and his fourth dimension?”

  “Argazila?” I could not place the name. Argazila? •…What did this man have to sit beside me for!

  “You do not know him? Few do. He was—he is—what is one to say? was, is, will be—they are all so alike out there.” He flung his arm upward and outward. “He is a Persian; little known, I daresay, but of whose importance the world shall soon know. Now, he is nothing; only a few, a very few, know.”

  I said nothing. There was nothing I could have said. “It is to the fourth dimension that I refer when I say that there is much to see in the park. Everything that was and will be is in the fourth dimension. You see?”

  I nodded hopefully, but I certainly did not see.

  “It is interesting to go through, the park probing the fourth dimension. One can easily see Maria Theresa walking about with Francis as a little boy.”

  “Yes?” I decided to humor him. One does not often come across so rare a specimen of an intoxicated man. But he really did not act it. His talk, though…

  “In Paris I saw the French Revolution re-enacted. Let me tell you that the real man behind that catastrophe, the man who spurred on Robespierre, Danton, Marat, and the others, was that famous charlatan known as Count Cagliostro.”

  “Yes?” said I again. I really could not think of anything else to say. What would you have said?

  “Anyone would have enjoyed seeing Napoleon march through Paris.” For a few minutes he was silent.

  “Look!” said I, pointing to a brakeman, signaling us with a red lantern. “Look at that man’s face!” The train was slowly starting to move. “He could be reading a newspaper.”

  “Yes, he could very well be reading a newspaper. I like the way his mouth turns down at the corners; as if he were reading something unpleasant.”

  For a moment the brakeman was outlined in the light of a sidetracked train. He looked so small. The stranger again started to speak; he did not appear to have looked at the brakeman, and yet…

  “You have probably been in Pisa?”

  “And have seen the tower? Yes,” said I, “I have.”

  “I saw them building it.” The man didn’t sound drunk. Perhaps his mind…? Sometimes, you know, you do find one or two; perfectly harmless if humored.

  “Yes?” I said again. It irritated me that I said it; one would think that I had absolutely no vocabulary. But in such a position…

  “I watched the succession of the Ptolemies from the death of Alexander the Great to the last of them. You should see Cleopatra. She isn’t really so wonderful; I’ve seen a good many girls—there’s one just ahead—that leave Cleopatra in the distance.”