Summary Of George Mcwhirter Fotheringay's 'Long Dragon'

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An unprepossessing clerk, George McWhirter Fotheringay, is involved in an argument in the Long Dragon bar concerning whether miracles actually exist. Fotheringay does not believe in miracles; he is a skeptic and a rationalist. He states, “Let us clearly understand what a miracle is. It’s something contrariwise to the course of nature done by power or Will, something what couldn’t happen without being specially willed.”(Wells line 21) By way of example, Fotheringay explains this is the gas lamp lighting the bar could not burn upside down. If it is to do so, that would be a miracle. He continues in his charade by telling the lamp to turn upside down without breaking but to continue burning steadily. The incredible happens; the lamp does just that. Fotheringay is accused of creating a silly trick and asked to leave. Later, alone in his little bedroom, he begins to grapple with what has just happened and realizes that at the exact moment he gives the command for the lamp to turn upside down, his mind had inadvertently willed it to do so. Fotheringay tests his theory with several simple experiments; then recalling that he must rise early in the morning for work, he commands a comfortable night’s sleep for himself. The next day, Fotheringay begins to think about the materialistic means to which he can turn his power. He calls into existence a pair of very splendid diamond studs but hastily annihilates them in fear that his courthouse boss.
Next, is the goblin