Macpherson walked to the threshold, paused, and looked back at Spenser
Hale, who sat there silent as a sphinx.
'Good-evening, Mr. Hale.'
There being no reply, he turned to me with the same ingratiating
smile,--
'Good-evening, Monsieur Eugene Valmont,' he said, 'I shall give myself
the pleasure of calling next Wednesday at six for my five shillings.'
6. _The Ghost with the Club-Foot_
Celebrated critics have written with scorn of what they call 'the long
arm of coincidence' in fiction. Coincidence is supposed to be the
device of a novelist who does not possess ingenuity enough to
construct a book without it. In France our incomparable writers pay no
attention to this, because they are gifted with a keener insight into
real life than is the case with the British. The superb Charles
Dickens, possibly as well known in France as he is wherever the
English language is read, and who loved French soil and the French
people, probably probed deeper into the intricacies of human character
than any other novelist of modern times, and if you read his works,
you will see that he continually makes use of coincidence. The
experience that has come to me throughout my own strange and varied
career convinces me that coincidence happens in real life with
exceeding frequency, and this fact is especially borne in upon me when
I set out to relate my conflict with the Rantremly ghost, which
wrought startling changes upon the lives of two people, one an
objectionable, domineering man, and the other a humble and crushed
woman.
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