“Does it?”
“Why, yes; you must be firm and yet kind. Don’t let it take liberties, or you don’t know where it will land you. I rather doubt if I ought to show you.”
I implored him to do so. I was young, rash, self-confident, and I thought I could manage an astral body as easily as I did the dean.
“Don’t blame me if you find it too much for you, that’s all,” said the rajah. “And of course you must promise not to tell anyone.”
“Oh, must I?”
“Yes, you must; because it’s quite irregular in me to show you like this. You ought, by rights, you know, to go to Thibet for seven years.”
“That would be rather a bore.”
“Beastly,” said the rajah; “but of course they insist on it, because they get the fees.”
He swore me to secrecy by all manner of oaths, and lastly on my word as a gentleman; and then he showed me. I practiced all that evening, and was tolerably proficient by the time the rajah knocked out his last pipe and went off to bed. I must not tell how it is done, as I promised not to; besides, if anyone reads this narrative through, he will never want to know.
At first it was very convenient. I always used to project it to chapel instead of going myself. It did capitally there, because it had only to behave itself and hold its tongue. At lectures it was a failure; it was such an inattentive beggar that its notes were worth nothing. And it was no sort of use in the Torpid; I was told that I should be turned out if I went on “sugaring” like that—there’s no pluck or endurance in these Orientals. On the whole, however, I was very well satisfied with it, and came to rely upon it more and more for all the unpleasant duties of life.