e said in
a rapid aside. "That's Tourney. He was over there at the time, and he'll
tell us all about it trying to put me right."

"If you don't like my story you can give us the straight steer yourself,
Tourney," he said, and, nothing loath, the older man told how Hall had
been suddenly stricken with appendicitis in such severe form that an
operation was necessary at once. Upon this the French surgeons agreed,
but his heart action was so bad that they dared not administer an
anaesthetic, and one of them, who was a noted hypnotist, expressed a
doubt whether he would be able to rouse the patient from a hypnosis
sufficiently profound to enable them to perform the operation.

"This Frenchman," Tourney went on, warming to his subject, "had seen
Earl do some wonderful things and he knew he was in Paris and where he
was stopping. He put the case to Hall, and seeing that it was all day
with him unless something was done, he told them to send for Earl and
they got him there on the double-quick. I was waiting in the hall when
he went into the operating room and I stayed there until he came out,
and as I had done him one or two good turns he told me about it before
he realized that I was a newspaper man. When he saw me last I was
coaching Harvard students with more money than brains. That has nothing
to do with it, except to show that he isn't one of these 'for
publication only' wonder workers."

"Hurry up," said the Chicagoan, "he'll be here in a few minutes, and if
he's one of these human clams you are the hope of the press. What did he
tell you?"

"He agreed with the others in the main points, but he said if Hall was
willing to take the chance, he believed he could pull him through by a
system he had seen used in India. Then he cleared them all out, and when
they came back Hall was comatose. The appendix was removed in record
time, and the wound cleansed. Just before Earl finished, one of the
Frenchmen noticed that the patient was not breathing, apparently, and
exclaimed that he was dead. Dr. Earl pointed out the fact that the blood
showed no signs of other than a normal condition, such as would be found
in a patient under hypnosis. His idea, as I got it, was that the patient
must be kept unconscious long enough for the body to regain its
functions and get over the strain of the operation. He told them if he
were more familiar with Hall's constitution, he would be inclined to
prolong his condition of suspended animation, bu