"Impossible, for I am the last to leave the room, and if there were anyone he would be immediately discovered."
"Then is it——?"
"Well, who?"
"Some one unseen?"
"I don't say so, but latterly it does seem as though some one were watching me, and could read my most secret thoughts. And if I ever kick over the traces, I am pulled up at once in a moment."
"Have you ever had similar abnormal experiences before?"
"Not I myself, but my mother and sister, who are Swedenborgians, have. Wait a minute, though! I did have one, just two years ago, in Berlin."
"Let me hear it."
"It was as follows:—I entered a lavatory near the Linden Avenue one evening, and saw beside me a bare-headed man of a questionable and strange appearance. He had a protuberance on the back of his neck, and to my astonishment he 'yodeled'[1] like a Tyrolese. The painful impression which this individual with his lugubrious physiognomy made on me remained with me unconsciously, and in order to shake it off I continued my walk outside the town, and finally found myself in the country. Tired and hungry I entered an inn, where I ordered at the bar a Frankfort sausage and a pint of beer. 'A Frankfort sausage and a pint—' of beer,' repeated some one at my side, and, as I turned round, I saw the man with the protuberance on his neck. Thrown into complete confusion, I went on my way without waiting for what I had ordered, and, unable to give the reason for my abrupt departure, I have never thought any more of this insignificant occurrence, but I have a very vivid impression of it, and it just now recurs to me."
When he had finished he covered his eyes with both hands, as though he wished to obliterate the picture by rubbing the pupil of his eye. which still retained the portrait of the man.