"Box on the mantel. Yes," he sighed, "that was really something very
curious. You see, I had invented the whole history of the case from the
time I got into the Back Bay car with my flowers. Absolutely nothing had
happened of all I had remembered till I got out of the car. I did not
put the picture beside me at the end of the car; I did not keep my hand
on it while I talked with General Filbert; I did not leave it behind me
when I left the car. Nothing of the kind happened. I had already left it
at the florist's, and that whole passage of experience which was so
vividly and circumstantially stamped in my memory that I related it four
or five times over, and would have made oath to every detail of it, was
pure invention, or, rather, it was something less positive: the reflex
of the first half of my horse-car experience, when I really did put the
picture in the corner next me, and did keep my hand on it."
"Very strange," I was beginning, but just then the door opened and Mrs.
Minver came in, and I was presented.
She gave me a distracted hand, as she said to her husband: "Have you
been telling the story about that picture again?" He was still holding
it.
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