...impossibility, the tale becomes alive, a piece of actual history, a human document. Few modern writers have surpassed Hale in what may be called the art of verisimilitude. He was the precursor of Stockton . A story like is manifestly a tour de force, yet one is in danger of gravely accepting it as a fact. Hale added to the short story not alone the sense of reality; he added plausibility as well. ...