Chapter 33 - Page 2

streamed out upon his hands, he rubbed
them a time, silently, as if washing them in the bright flood.

'One dollar for this little box of daylight,' he said.

'Blind?' said the stranger as he paid him the money.

'No,' said Riggs, 'only dreaming as you are.

I wondered what he meant by the words 'dreaming as you are .

'Went to bed on my way home to marry,' he continued, stroking his
long white beard, 'and saw the lights go out an' went asleep and it
hasn't come morning yet - that's what I believe. I went into a
dream. Think I'm here in a shop talking but I'm really in my bunk
on the good ship Arid coming home. Dreamed everything since
then - everything a man could think of. Dreamed I came home and
found Annie dead, dreamed of blindness, of old age, of poverty, of
eating and drinking and sleeping and of many people who pass like
dim shadows and speak to me - you are one of them. And
sometimes I forget I am dreaming and am miserable, and then I
remember and am happy. I know when the morning comes I shall
wake and laugh at all these phantoms. And I shall pack my things
and go up on deck, for we shall be in the harbour probably - ay!
maybe Annie and mother will be waving their hands on the dock!

The old face had a merry smile as he spoke of the morning and all
it had for him.

'Seems as if it had lasted a thousand years,' he continued, yawning
and rubbing his eyes. 'But I've dreamed the like before, and, my
God! how glad I felt when I woke in the morning.

It gave me an odd feeling - this remarkable theory of the old man. I
thought then it would be better for most of us if we could think all
our misery a dream and have his faith in the morning - that it would
bring back the things we have lost. I had come to buy a lock for my
door, but I forgot my errand and sat down by Riggs while the
stranger went away with his lantern.

'You see no reality in anything but happiness,' I said.

'It's all a means to that end,' he answered. 'It is good for me, this
dream. I shall be all the happier when I do wake, and I shall love
Annie all the better, I suppose.

'I wish I could take my ifi luck as a dream and have faith only in
good things,' I said.

'All that is good shall abide,' said he, stroking his white beard, 'and
all evil shall vanish as the substance of a dream. In the end the
only realities are God and love and Heaven. To die is just like
waking up in the morning.

'But I know I'm awake,' I said.

'You think you are - that's a part of your dream. Sometimes I think
I'm awake - it all seems so real to me. But I have thought it out,
and I am the only man I meet that knows he is dreaming. When
you do wake, in the morning, you may