“You remember,” said he, “the night when I handed you the rough sketch I had made of the scarabaeus.  You recollect, also, that I became quite vexed at you for insisting that my drawing resembled a death’s-head.  When you first made this assertion I thought you were jesting; but afterwards I called to mind the peculiar spots on the back of the insect, and admitted to myself that your remark had some little foundation in fact.  Still, the sneer at my graphic powers irritated me—­for I am considered a good artist—­and, therefore, when you handed me the scrap of parchment, I was about to crumple it up and throw it angrily into the fire.”

“The scrap of paper, you mean,” said I.

“No:  it had much of the appearance of paper, and at first I supposed it to be such, but when I came to draw upon it, I discovered it, at once, to be a piece of very thin parchment.  It was quite dirty, you remember.  Well, as I was in the very act of crumpling it up, my glance fell upon the sketch at which you had been looking, and you may imagine my astonishment when I perceived, in fact, the figure of a death’s-head just where, it seemed to me, I had made the drawing of the beetle.  For a moment I was too much amazed to think with accuracy.  I knew that my design was very different in detail from this—­although there was a certain similarity in general outline.  Presently I took a candle, and, seating myself at the other end of the room, proceeded to scrutinize the parchment more closely.  Upon turning it over, I saw my own sketch upon the reverse, just as I had made it.  My first idea, now, was mere surprise at the really remarkable similarity of outline—­at the singular coincidence involved in the fact that, unknown to me, there should have been a skull upon the other side of the parchment, immediately beneath my figure of the scarabaeus, and that this skull, not only in outline, but in size, should so closely resemble my drawing.  I say the singularity of this coincidence absolutely stupefied me for a time.  This is the usual effect of such coincidences.  The mind struggles to establish a connection—­a sequence of cause and effect—­and, being unable to do so, suffers a species of temporary paralysis.  But, when I recovered from this stupor, there dawned upon me gradually a conviction which startled me even far more than the coincidence.  I began distinctly, positively, to remember that there had been no drawing on the parchment when I made my sketch of the scarabaeus.  I became perfectly certain of this; for I recollected turning up first one side and then the other, in search of the cleanest spot.  Had the skull been then there, of course I could not have failed to notice it.  Here was indeed a mystery which I felt it impossible to explain; but, even at that early moment, there seemed to glimmer, faintly, within the most remote and secret chambers of my intellect, a glow-worm-like conception of that truth which last night’s adventure brought to so magnificent a demonstration.  I arose at once, and, putting the parchment securely away, dismissed all farther reflection until I should be alone.