ad stilled every tongue. I was myself greatly affected.

Some three years later, when the events herein related had nearly faded
from my memory, I went to New York to assist in passing some counterfeit
United States bonds. Carelessly looking into a furniture store one day,
I saw the exact counterpart of that bookcase. "I bought it for a trifle
from a reformed inventor," the dealer explained. "He said it was
fireproof, the pores of the wood being filled with alum under hydraulic
pressure and the glass made of asbestos. I don't suppose it is really
fireproof--you can have it at the price of an ordinary book-case."

"No," I said, "if you cannot warrant it fireproof I won't take it"--and
I bade him good morning.

I would not have had it at any price: it revived memories that were
exceedingly disagreeable.

THE HYPNOTIST

By those of my friends who happen to know that I sometimes amuse myself
with hypnotism, mind reading and kindred phenomena, I am frequently
asked if I have a clear conception of the nature of whatever principle
underlies them. To this question I always reply that I neither have nor
desire to have. I am no investigator with an ear at the key-hole of
Nature's workshop, trying with vulgar curiosity to steal the secrets of
her trade. The interests of science are as little to me as mine seem to
have been to science.

Doubtless the phenomena in question are simple enough, and in no way
transcend our powers of comprehension if only we could find the clew;
but for my part I prefer not to find it, for I am of a singularly
romantic disposition, deriving more gratification from mystery than from
knowledge. It was commonly remarked of me when I was a child that my big
blue eyes appeared to have been made rather to look into than look out
of--such was their dreamful beauty, and in my frequent periods of
abstraction, their indifference to what was going on. In those
peculiarities they resembled, I venture to think, the soul which lies
behind them, always more intent upon some lovely conception which it has
created in its own image than concerned about the laws of nature and the
material frame of things. All this, irrelevant and egotistic as it may
seem, is related by way of accounting for the meagreness of the light
that I am able to throw upon a subject that has engaged so much of my
attention, and concerning which there is so keen and general a
curiosity. With my powers and opportunities, another person