There are people so thoroughly conventional and so eminently proper that one feels nothing unusual could ever happen to them.
And yet, such people appear again and again in the Chronicles of the Incredible.
Consider, for example, the strange experience of Miss Behittable Scott on the road from St. Boswell's.
It had been Miss Scott's custom to spend one afternoon each week in the company of her sister.
Since the two elderly spinsters lived in neighboring towns,
they had decided that it was only fair that they should meet halfway on the road that ran between.
And so, on the afternoon of the 7th of May 1893, Miss Behittable Scott left her home in St. Boswell's, Roxburyshire,
and set out to keep her appointment.
But she had scarcely reached the outskirts of the town when she heard the church clock announcing the hour.
Oh, good heavens! It's four o'clock. I'm late. I've never been late before.
I know what I'll do. It's not Ladylike, and I've never done it before,
but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to run.
With rapid mincing steps, she spread along the road.
For several moments, she ran, and then suddenly, she stopped.
Oh! Look, there's a gentleman up ahead there. Tell me, where did he come from?
A man had materialized before her, as if out of thin air.
He was a tall, lean gentleman dressed all in black like a clergyman.
I can't run right past him. That would be too undignified.
Five minutes later, the gentleman ahead turned a slight bend in the road.
He was still visible, however. At least the upper part of his body was above a low hedge.
And Mehidabal, having an opportunity now to observe his face, was watching him quite closely when...
Oh! He's still me! Disappeared!
One moment, the clergyman had been quite visible. The next, he was gone.
Mehidabal blinked several times in wonder and disbelief.
There were no trees there behind which a man might hide. There were no side roads.
There was only the hedge, which could not possibly conceal anyone.
The hedge and open country as far as the eye could reach.
And there were no signs of the clergyman.
But Mehidabal Scott refused to accept the evidence of her senses.
She decided she knew the explanation.
It serves me right, poor Rimming. I should have known better.
Rimming overheats the plane, and an overheated brain can play all sorts of things.
But there wasn't any clergyman at all.
A few yards beyond the bend in the road, Mehidabal's sister waited at the usual meeting place.
Mehidabal approached her with a fusive apology.
Oh, you poor dear! I'm so dreadfully sorry.
Why?
I'm at least fifteen minutes late.
Oh, oh yes, there you are.
I've... I've had something else in my mind, Mehidabal.
It was the strangest thing that ever happened to me.
What was, dear?
A man. A man dressed all in black.
He came around that bend in the road just a few minutes ago.
Yes.
I saw him distinctly.
And then...
I know you won't believe this, Mehidabal.
Then he disappeared before my very eyes.
Men who have the power to make themselves invisible have always belonged in the province of the writer of fantastic fiction.
But perhaps, had this story been allowed to gain wider currency,
we might have been forced long ago to revise our opinions.
For if no one can make himself invisible,
then how shall we explain the experience of Miss Mehidabal Scott and her sister?
An experience incredible, but true.