This slight episode over, the work went on accordingly. Paralysis flourished in all its shapes. One lad was spellbound to the floor, and could not move a yard from the spot, though encouraged to do so by an offer of twenty pounds from the liberal and daring artist. What effect the superadded security of the Vice-President might have had upon the patient's powers of locomotion, we really cannot say. Another, as he assured us, was utterly deprived of sight by a few cross passes of the operator—a third was charmed into dumbness—whilst a fourth declared his readiness to be converted into a pin-cushion; but was, at the intreaty of some ladies and our benevolent acquaintance, exempted from that metamorphosis, and merely endured, without murmuring, a few nips from the fingers of the lecturer.
This closed the séance. We moved a vote of thanks to the Mesmerist for his gratifying exertions, and then retired to our Club to meditate upon the subject over a comfortable board of pandores. A few days afterwards, we met our friend the young Indian officer in Prince's Street.
"I say, old fellow," quoth the Jemadar, "that was a confounded take-in the other night."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, that magnetizing nonsense. Not a soul of then was asleep after all."
"Do you wish me to disbelieve the evidence of my own senses?"
"You may believe whatever you like; I only wish you had been with us last Tuesday at a meeting we held in the Café. If you've got any tin about you, and don't mind standing an ice or so at Mrs Stewart's, I'll tell you all about it."
Our desire for truth overcame our habitual parsimony. We led the way into the back saloon, and at a moderate expenditure became possessed of the following particulars:—
"You see," said the Jemadar, sipping his cherry bounce, "there were a lot of clever fellows sitting near me the other night, and I made out from what they said that they were by no means satisfied with the whole proceeding. Now, as I have seen a thing or two in India, where, by Jove, a native will make a mango-tree grow out of a flowerpot before your eyes, and bear fruit enough in a few months to keep a large family for a year in pickles—and as I knew all about snake-charming, the singeing of tiger's whiskers, and so forth, I thought I might be of some use to the scientific birds; so, when the meeting broke up, I proposed an adjournment and a tumbler. I looked about for you, but you seemed more agreeably occupied."
"You never were in a greater mistake in your life."