XX. Crandall's Choice

John Crandall sat at his office desk and thought the situation over. Everybody had gone and he was in the office alone. Crandall was rather tired and a little sleepy, so he was inclined to take a gloomy view of things. Not that there was anything wrong with his business; in fact, it was in a first-rate condition so far as it went, but it did not go far enough; that was what John thought as he brooded over his affairs. He was making money, of course, but the trouble was that he was not making it fast enough.

As he thought of these things John gradually and imperceptibly went to sleep, and while he slept he dreamt a dream. It would be quite easy to pretend that the two persons who came to him in the vision, actually entered the office and that he thought them regular customers or something of that sort, while at the end of the story, when everybody was bewildered, the whole matter might be explained by announcing the fact that it was all a dream, but this account being a true and honest one, no such artifice will be used and at the very beginning the admission is made that John was the victim of a vision.

In this dream two very beautiful ladies approached him. One was richly dressed and wore the most dazzling jewelry. The other was clad in plain attire. At first, the dreaming Mr. Crandall thought, or dreamt he thought, that the richly dressed one was the prettier. She was certainly very attractive, but, as she came closer, John imagined that much of her beauty was artificial. He said to himself that she painted artistically perhaps, but at any rate she laid it on rather thick.

About the other there was no question. She was a beauty, and what loveliness she possessed was due to the bounties of Providence and not to the assistance of the chemist. She was the first to speak.

"Mr. Crandall," she said, in the sweetest of voices, "we have come here together so that you may choose between us. Which one will you have?"

"Bless me," said Crandall, so much surprised at the unblushing proposal that he nearly awoke himself, "bless me, don't you know that I am married?"

"Oh, that doesn't matter," answered the fair young lady, with the divinest of smiles.

"Doesn't it?" said Mr. Crandall. "If you had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Crandall I think you would find that it did--very much indeed."

"But we are not mortals; we are spirits."

"Oh, are you? Well, of course that makes a difference," replied Mr. Crandall much relieved, for he began to fear from the turn the conversation had taken that he was in the presence of two writers of modern novels.

"This lady," continued the first speaker, "is the spirit of wealth. If you choose her you will be a very rich man before you die."

"Oh, ho!" cried Crandall. "Are you sure of