The Incredulity of Father BrownWhat's the good of your blessings if they can't beat an Irish larrykin's curse?"

"Does anybody believe such things now?" protested the Westerner.

"Father Brown believes a good number of things, I take it," said Vandam, whose temper was suffering from the past snub and the present bickering. "Father Brown believes a hermit crossed a river on a crocodile conjured out of nowhere, and then he told the crocodile to die, and it sure did. Father Brown believes that some blessed saint or other died, and had his dead body turned into three dead bodies, to be served out to three parishes that were all I bent on figuring as his home-town. Father Brown believes that a saint hung his cloak on a sunbeam, and another used his for a boat to cross the Atlantic. Father Brown believes the holy donkey had six legs and the house of Loretto flew through the air. He believes in hundreds of stone virgins winking and weeping all day long. It's nothing to him to believe that a man might escape through the keyhole or vanish out of a locked room. I reckon he doesn't take much stock of the laws of nature."

"Anyhow, I have to take stock in the laws of Warren Wynd," said the secretary, wearily, "and it's his rule that he's to be left alone when he says so. Wilson will tell you just the same," for the large servant who had been sent for the pamphlet, passed placidly down the corridor even as he spoke, carrying