What Bean made of this in transcribing his notes need not be told.  What is solely important is that, as the tale progressed, he became enthralled by the doctrine of reincarnation.  It was of minor consequence that he became expert in shorthand.

Had he lived before, would he live again?  There must be a way to know.  “Alclytus,” began an early chapter of the tale, “was born this time in 21976 B.C. in a male body as the son of a king, in what is now the Telugu country not far from Masulipatam.  He was proficient in riding, shooting, swimming and the sports of his race.  When he came of age he married Surya, the daughter of a neighbouring rajah and they were very happy together in their religious studies—­”

Had he, Bunker Bean, perhaps once espoused the daughter of a rajah, and been happy in religious studies with her?  Had he, perchance, been even the rajah himself?  Why not?

The romance was never finished.  A worried son of the old gentleman appeared one day, alleged that he had run off from a good home where he was kindly treated, and by mild force carried him back.  But he had performed his allotted part in Bean’s life.

A few books had been left and these were read.  Death was a recurring incident in an endless life.  Wise men he saw had found this an answer to all problems—­founders of religions and philosophies—­Buddha, Pythagoras, Plato, the Christ.  Wise moderns had accepted it, Max Mueller and Hume and Goethe, Fichte, Schelling, Lessing.  Bean could not appraise these authorities, but the names somehow sounded convincing and the men had seemed to think that reincarnation was the only doctrine of immortality a philosopher could consider.

It remained, then, to explore the Karmic past of Bunker Bean; not in any mood of lightness.  A verse quoted by the old man had given him pause: 

  “Who toiled a slave may come anew a prince
    For gentle worthiness and merit won;
  Who ruled a king may wander earth in rags
    For things done and undone.”

What might he have been?  For ruling once as a king, a bad king, was he now merely Bunker Bean, not precisely roaming the earth in rags, but sidling timidly through its terrors, disbelieving in himself, afraid of policemen, afraid of life?

So he confronted and considered the thing, fascinated by its vistas as once he had been by the shell.  If it were true that we cast away our worn bodies and ever reclothe ourselves with new, why should not the right member of Mrs. Jackson’s profession one day unfold to him his beginningless past?

III

“The courts havin’ decided,” continued Breede, in staccato explosions, “that the ’quipment is nes’ry part of road, without which road would be tot’ly crippled, you will note these first moggige ’quipment bonds take pri’rty over first-moggige bonds, an’ gov’n y’sef ‘cordingly your ver’ truly—­”