Arthur Edwards Chapman

“ I was working too hard; a rest would do me good. . . .
Drip, drip, drip. . . .
Nothing strange about that, surely! I thought, I would have it out with my friend the plumber, all the same. . . . . Meanwhile, I must try and check the dripping. . . .
As I entered the bathroom the tap, seeming to protest against my interference, began to drip faster, and I reached out my hand to stop it. Then I felt a peculiar stinging, burning sensation of intense cold across the backs of my hands as though someone were passing a piece of ice over them, and the knob of the tap began slowly to unscrew itself. ”

“ Glancing quickly at the clock, I saw that it was a quarter to eleven, and as the drip, drip, drip slowly became louder I felt something of that fear of the previous night returning.
Gratrix rose sharply and flung his half-consumed cigarette into the fireplace, a strange, far-off look in his eyes.
"Come," he said quietly, and I followed him, not without some misgivings, to the bath-room.
As he pushed open the door my eyes instinctively sought out the tap, and I saw that it was slowly turning. . . turning. ”

“ Quietly he answered as he turned toward me:
"It means. . . . that the unexpressed thought has become an actuality. The spirit will trouble you no more!"
My friend the plumber came, as he had promised, to see how his job had gone on.
"Well, sir," he said "I dare bet as how that tap ain't dripping now eh?"
I smiled thoughtfully,
"No," I replied slowly; "it doesn't drip. . . . now!" ”