My land, you should have seen the king's eyes
spread slowly open, and lift the earth's entire atmos-
phere as much as an inch! That settled Brer Merlin.
One never had any occasion to prove his facts, with
these people; all he had to do was to state them. It
never occurred to anybody to doubt the statement.

"Now, then," I continued, "I COULD work both
kinds of prophecy -- the long and the short -- if I
chose to take the trouble to keep in practice; but I
seldom exercise any but the long kind, because the
other is beneath my dignity. It is properer to Merlin's
sort -- stump-tail prophets, as we call them in the pro-
fession. Of course, I whet up now and then and flirt