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MY FATHER'S MANUSCRIPT 51
I use your house when I want to go the nearest way home. I must indeed—without your leave, for which I ask your pardon—have by this time well established a right of ivay through it—not from front to bach, but from bottom to top !'
' You would have me then understand, Mr. Baven,' I said, ' that you go through my house into another world, heedless of disparting space ? -
' That I go through it is an incontrovertible acknowledgment of space,' returned the old librarian.
'Please do not quibble, Mr. Baven,'' I rejoined. Please to take my question as you know I mean it.'
' There is in your house a door, one step through which carries me into a world very much another than this.'
' A better ? '
' Not throughout; but so much another that most of its physical, and many of its mental laws are different from those of this world. As for moral laws, they must everytvhere be fundamentally the same.'
' You try my power of belief!' I said.
' You take me for a madman, probably ? '
' You do not look like one.'
' A liar then ? '
' You give me no ground to think you such.'
I Only you do not believe me ?'
'I will go out of that door with you if you like : I believe in you enough to risk the attempt.'
' The blunder all my children make !' he murmured. i The only door out is the door in!'
I began to think he must be crazy. He sat silent for a moment, his head resting on his hand, his elbow on the table, and his eyes on the books before him.
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