tobacco store. There I am operating on a boy--such a stupid little
Flemish boy that no amount of fluid could ever make him clever. How I
came to treat him to passes I don't remember; probably I used him as
an object-lesson to amuse Carry. All I recollect is that I gave him
a key to hold, and made him believe that it was red-hot and burnt
his fingers, or that it was a piece of pudding to be eaten presently,
thereby making him howl and grin alternately.

In the middle of our seance Carry is called away by a customer, one
of the swells of Malines much addicted to a poetical expression of his
admiration for the fair sex in general and for Carry in particular.
Greatly to our edification, she was pleased to improve the occasion by
leading him on, within our hearing, to make what is commonly called a
fool of himself. The pleasant incident is recorded in the accompanying
sketch.

But mesmerism meant more than incidental amusement or even scientific
experiment to us in those Antwerp and Malines days. When one stands
on the threshold of a world of mysteries one cannot but long to bridge
over the chasm that separates one from the gods, the fairies, or
the fiends. To be sure, we should have been glad if we could have
got "light, more light" thrown on our steps, but, failing that, we
tried to find our way as best we could in the mist. We loved that
never-attainable Will-o'-the-Wisp, "Truth," for its own dear Bohemian
sake; so, guided by Fancy and Fantasy, we made frequent inroads into
the boundless land where unknown forces pick up our poor dear little
conception of the Impossible, and use it as the starting-point of
never-to-be-exhausted possibilities.

[Illustration: A MESMERIC SEANCE IN MRS. L.'S BACK PARLOUR.]

Such a land was particularly well suited to the state of our
outward-bound minds and our excelsior appetites. It was on one or
the other of these excursions, I feel confident, that du Maurier
was inoculated with the germs that were eventually to develop into
Trilbyism and Svengalism. No wonder, then, if in more than one of
his letters and sketches the future delineator of those characters
embodies bold dreams and fancies, or if on one occasion he depicts
himself, with fixed gaze and hair erect, sitting bolt upright on my
hospitable sofa, thrilled and overawed by the midnight presence of the
uncanny, which I had evoked for his benefit.

"Yes, governor, it's all very well to ask a nervous fellow to Antwerp
and amuse