But Gratz hurried on, explained the unconscious visits of his astounded hearer to the cellar, and all that followed.
“Then,” exclaimed Raikes, when he had concluded, “I have been the victim of hypnotic suggestion.”
“Precisely!” replied Gratz. “The story was merely the medium of transmission, and through this weird conduit the story-teller conveyed his instructions to your subconsciousness.”
“But,” demanded Raikes, “why this substitution of coals? It strikes me that a scheme so clever as all this would scarcely be jeopardized by such an absurdity.”
“That contingency,” answered Gratz, “was never intended. In your condition of mind, having discharged the coin upon the floor of the bin, a mental idiosyncrasy of years insisted upon recognition.
“In some inexplicable way you retained enough of your mental identity to preserve some manifestation of the law of equivalents. In other words, having parted with something, you demanded something in return.
“With as much deliberation, therefore, as you manifested in contributing to your loss, you attempted to reimburse yourself by filling the bag with coal.
“In some occult way you assured yourself that you were engaged in a transaction where one commodity took the place of another.
“To this freak of mentality the idea of the pebbles in the story being substituted for the diamonds contributed; and what was intended by the narrator as a consistency of detail, to be explained later on, made an unforeseen appeal to your native cupidity and provided me with a very satisfactory clue.
“Moreover, the narrator assisted himself by allowing you to contemplate some brilliants—a sapphire, a diamond.