"An Astrologer's Day" is a story that is based on falsehoods. It is a lie that the so-called astrologer can determine the future, read palms, or see into the past. He is merely a man with enough common sense to know what people want to hear. It is his own sordid past that has brought him to this somewhat sordid profession.

It is important to analyze when the climax of this story is. On a second read, or perhaps even the first for an astute reader, it can be seen that the climax comes not at the end of the story, but approximately halfway through, at the moment when the stranger's face is illuminated by the match that lights his cheroot. The reader does not yet understand what this means, and the author in no way draws attention to it. However, it is at this...