"Well," said Lefevre, "this Nervous Force, or Nervous Ether, is clearly a very volatile, and at the same time a very searching fluid. It can easily pass through the skin from a nerve in one person to a nerve in another. There is no difficulty about that; the difficulty is to set up a rapid enough vibration to whirl the current through!" He said that in meditative fashion: he was clearly at the moment repeating the working out of the problem.
"I see," said the young man, looking thoughtful.
"Now, you are a musician, are you not?"
"I play a little," said the young man, with a bewildered look.
"You play the violin?"
"And, of course, you have it in your rooms. Would you be so good as to bring me the bow of your violin, and borrow for me anywhere a tuning-fork of as high a note as possible?"
The young man looked at Dr Lefevre in puzzled inquiry; but the doctor was considering the electrical apparatus before him, and the young man set off on his errands. When he returned with the fiddle-bow and the tuning-fork, he saw Lefevre had placed the machine ready, with fresh chemicals in the vessels.
"Do you perceive my purpose?" asked Lefevre. He placed one handle of the apparatus in the unconscious patient's right hand, while he himself took hold of her left arm with his right hand, so that the inner side of his wrist was in contact with the inner side of hers; and then, to complete the circle of connection, he took in his left hand the other handle of the apparatus. "You don't understand?"
"I do not," answered the young man.