per of fire and horrors that was calculated to last them one while!
They couldn't gasp, when I got through--they were petrified. Dr. Peake
had risen, and was standing,--and breathing hard. He said, in a great
voice--

"My doubts are ended. No collusion could produce that miracle. It was
totally impossible for him to know those details, yet he has described
them with the clarity of an eye-witness--and with what unassailable
truthfulness God knows I know!"

I saved the colonial mansion for the last night, and solidified and
perpetuated Dr. Peake's conversion with the cannon-ball hole. He
explained to the house that I could never have heard of that small
detail, which differentiated this mansion from all other Virginian
mansions and perfectly identified it, therefore the fact stood proven
that I had _seen_ it in my vision. Lawks!

It is curious. When the magician's engagement closed there was but one
person in the village who did not believe in mesmerism, and I was the
one. All the others were converted, but I was to remain an implacable
and unpersuadable disbeliever in mesmerism and hypnotism for close upon
fifty years. This was because I never would examine them, in after life.
I couldn't. The subject revolted me. Perhaps because it brought back to
me a passage in my life which for pride's sake I wished to forget;
though I thought--or persuaded myself I thought--I should never come
across a "proof" which wasn't thin and cheap, and probably had a fraud
like me behind it.

The truth is, I did not have to wait long to get tired of my triumphs.
Not thirty days, I think. The glory which is built upon a lie soon
becomes a most unpleasant incumbrance. No doubt for a while I enjoyed
having my exploits told and retold and told again in my presence and
wondered over and exclaimed about, but I quite distinctly remember that
there presently came a time when the subject was wearisome and odious to
me and I could not endure the disgusting discomfort of it. I am well
aware that the world-glorified doer of a deed of great and real splendor
has just my experience; I know that he deliciously enjoys hearing about
it for three or four weeks, and that pretty soon after that he begins to
dread the mention of it, and by and by wishes he had been with the
damned before he ever thought of doing that deed; I remember how General
Sherman used to rage and swear over "When we were Marching through
Georgia," which was played at him and sung at hi