n
that score. But whether they are pleasant or the contrary, I accept them
as so much experience, and in so far I am satisfied. You look
incredulous, but I tell you, sir, that what I see, and what I
undergo--subjectively--while under the influence of drashkil make up for
me an experience as real, that dwells as vividly in my memory and that
can be brought to mind like any other set of recollections, as if it
were built up brick by brick, fact by fact, out of the incidents of
everyday life. And all such experiences are valuable in this wise: that
whatever I see while under the influence of drashkil I see, as it were,
with the eyes of genius. I breathe a keener atmosphere; I have finer
intuitions; the brain is no longer clogged with that part of me which is
mortal; in whatever imaginary scenes I assist, whether actor or
spectator, matters not; I seem to discern the underlying meaning of
things--I hear the low faint beating of the hidden pulses of the world.
To come back from this enchanted realm to the dull realities of everyday
life is like depriving some hero of fairyland of his magic gifts and
reducing him to the level of common humanity."

"At which pleasant level I pray ever to be kept," said Ducie; "I have no
desire to soar into those regions of romance where you seem so
thoroughly at home."

"So be it," said Platzoff drily. "The intellects of you English have
been nourished on beef and beer for so many generations that there is no
such thing as spiritual insight left among you. We must not expect too
much." This was said not ill-naturedly, but in that quiet jeering tone
which was almost habitual with Platzoff.

Ducie maintained a judicious silence and went on puffing gravely at his
meerschaum. Platzoff touched the gong and Cleon entered, for this
conversation took place before the illness of the latter. The Russian
held up two fingers, and Cleon bowed. Then Cleon opened a mahogany box
in one corner of the room, and took out of it a pipe-bowl of red clay,
into which he fitted a flexible tube five or six yards in length and
tipped with amber. The bowl was then fixed into a stand of black oak
about a foot high and there held securely, and the mouthpiece handed to
Platzoff. Cleon next opened an inlaid box, and by means of a tiny silver
spatula he cut out a small block of some black, greasy-looking mixture,
which he proceeded to fit into the bowl of the pipe. On the top of this
he sprinkled a little aromatic Turkish