»Has he ever gone beyond that?«
    »He would not claim more, I think.«
    »It is probably his limit. All prophets have their limit. The limit of some
of the great prophets has been a hundred years.«
    »These are few, I ween.«
    »There have been two still greater ones, whose limit was four hundred and
six hundred years, and one whose limit compassed even seven hundred and twenty.«
    »Gramercy, it is marvelous!«
    »But what are these, by comparison with me? They are nothing.«
    »What? Canst thou truly look beyond even so vast a stretch of time as -«
    »Seven hundred years? My liege, as clear as the vision of an eagle does my
prophetic eye penetrate and lay bare the future of this world for nearly
thirteen centuries and a half!«
    My land, you should have seen the king's eyes spread slowly open, and lift
the earth's entire atmosphere 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
profession. Of course I whet up now and then and flirt out a minor prophecy, but
not often - hardly ever, in fact. You will remember that there was great talk,
when you reached the Valley of Holiness, about my having prophesied your coming
and the very hour of your arrival, two or three days beforehand.«
    »Indeed, yes, I mind it now.«
    »Well, I could have done it as much as forty times easier, and piled on a
thousand times more detail into the bargain, if it had been five hundred years
away instead of two or three days.«
    »How amazing that it should be so!«
    »Yes, a genuine expert can always foretell a thing that is five hundred
years away easier than he can a thing that's only five hundred seconds off.«
    »And yet in reason it should clearly be the other way: it should be five
hundred times as easy to foretell the last as the