"Can't say that I have."
"Hm! Well, sometimes you succeed, and sometimes you don't; more often you don't. There was one patient, a man by the name of Allen, who had been a sailor. He was subject to fits of extreme melancholia, and at times was positively dangerous, as he imagined some one was trying to poison him.
"I never succeeded in hypnotizing him, although I tried repeatedly. However, I
saw him every day, and as his general health improved, his attacks of melancholia became less frequent. He seemed grateful to me for taking an interest in him, and often talked with me about his early life and the out-of-the-way countries he had visited. Shortly after I was called away and did not return to the asylum for two weeks, and when I did go back I found that Allen was dead. He had cut his throat one afternoon with a large pocket-knife and made a mighty clean job of it, too.
"Well," continued the doctor, "among his effects they found a package addressed to me, which contained a letter and a silver coin. The coin you now hold in your hand, the letter I have here in my desk."
He opened a drawer and took out a large yellow envelope containing a number of pages of closely written manuscript.
"This letter," said Watson, as he
slowly turned over the pages, "contains a story so strange that I did not for a moment believe it had any foundation in fact; but during the past year or two I have learned certain things which have caused me to change my opinion. Whether the story is true or not we will, of course, never know, but I now believe that it is a true record of events which actually happened. I have made some inquiries and find that the places mentioned do exist, or did at the time this story was written, and—but never mind; I will read you the letter and you can form your own conclusions:
"'Dr. S. T. Watson:
"'Dear Sir: I have made up my mind to kill myself, but before I die I wish to make a confession of my wrong doings, as he insists that I shall and I dare not disobey him. I therefore write this confession, to be read by you after I am dead.