five consecutive minutes for the
first time in the whole of her waking existence, gazing at the spot at
her feet where sprawled the white angora, surrounded by her mottled
offspring. Even when the first shock of her defeat had passed, she
simply heaved a deep sigh, and uttered two words,--

"Oh, _Zut_!"

The which, in Parisian argot, at once means everything and nothing.

GUY WETMORE CARRYL.

A PSYCHICAL INVASION

I

"And what is it makes you think I could be of use in this particular
case?" asked Dr. John Silence, looking across somewhat sceptically at
the Swedish lady in the chair facing him.

"Your sympathetic heart and your knowledge of occultism--"

"Oh, please--that dreadful word!" he interrupted, holding up a finger
with a gesture of impatience.

"Well, then," she laughed, "your wonderful clairvoyant gift and your
trained psychic knowledge of the processes by which a personality may be
disintegrated and destroyed--these strange studies you've been
experimenting with all these years--"

"If it's only a case of multiple personality I must really cry off,"
interrupted the doctor again hastily, a bored expression in his eyes.

"It's not that; now, please, be serious, for I want your help," she
said; "and if I choose my words poorly you must be patient with my
ignorance. The case I know will interest you, and no one else could deal
with it so well. In fact, no ordinary professional man could deal with
it at all, for I know of no treatment or medicine that can restore a
lost sense of humour!"

"You begin to interest me with your 'case,'" he replied, and made
himself comfortable to listen.

Mrs. Sivendson drew a sigh of contentment as she watched him go to the
tube and heard him tell the servant he was not to be disturbed.

"I believe you have read my thoughts already," she said; "your intuitive
knowledge of what goes on in other people's minds is positively
uncanny."

Her friend shook his head and smiled as he drew his chair up to a
convenient position and prepared to listen attentively to what she had
to say. He closed his eyes, as he always did when he wished to absorb
the real meaning of a recital that might be inadequately expressed, for
by this method he found it easier to set himself in tune with the living
thoughts that lay behind the broken words.

By his friends John Silence was regarded as an eccentric, because he was
rich by acciden