"Give me a little _creme de menthe_, will you, please?" said he, after a
moment's pause.
"I haven't a drop in the house," I said, relieved to think that this
wonderful being could come down to anything so earthly.
"Pshaw, Hiram!" he ejaculated, apparently in disgust. "Don't be mean, and,
above all, don't lie. Why, man, you've got a bottle full of it in your
hand! Do you want it all?"
He was right. Where it came from I do not know; but, beyond question, the
graceful, slim-necked bottle was in my right hand, and my left held a
liqueur-glass of exquisite form.
"Say," I gasped, as soon as I was able to collect my thoughts, "what are
your terms?"
"Wait a moment," he answered. "Let me do a little mind-reading before we
arrange preliminaries."
"I haven't much of a mind to read tonight," I answered, wildly.
[Illustration]
"You're right there," said he. "It's like a dime novel, that mind of yours
to-night. But I'll do the best I can with it. Suppose you think of your
favorite poem, and after turning it over in your mind carefully for a few
minutes, select two lines from it, concealing them, of course, from me,
and I will tell you what they are."
Now my favorite poem, I regret to say, is Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwock," a
fact I was ashamed to confess to an utter stranger, so I tried to deceive
him by thinking of some other lines. The effort was hardly successful, for
the only other lines I could call to mind at the moment were from Rudyard
Kipling's rhyme, "The Post that Fitted," and which ran,
"Year by year, in pious patience, vengeful Mrs. Boffin sits
Waiting for the Sleary babies to develop Sleary's fits."
"Humph!" ejaculated my visitor. "You're a great Hiram, you are."
And then rising from his chair and walking to my "poet's corner," the
magician selected two volumes.
"There," said he, handing me the _Departmental Ditties_. "You'll find the
lines you tried to fool me with at the foot of page thirteen. Look."
I looked, and there lay that vile Sleary sentiment, in all the majesty of
type, staring me in the eyes.
"And here," added my visitor, opening _Alice in the Looking-Glass_--"here
is the poem that to your mind holds all the philosophy of life:
"'Come to my arms, my beamish boy,
He chortled in his joy.'"
I blushed and trembled. Blushed that he should discover the weakness of my
taste, trembled at his power.
"I don't blame you for coloring," said the magician. "But I thought you
said the Gutenberg was made up of men of brains? Do you think you could
stay on the rolls a month if they were aware that your poetic ideals are
summed up in the 'Jabberwock' and 'Sleary's Fits'?"
"My taste might be far worse," I answered.
[Illustration]
"Yes, it might. You might have stooped to liking some of your own verses.
I ought really to congratulate you, I suppose," retorted the visitor, with
a sneering laugh.
This roused my ire again.
"Who are you, anyhow, that you come here and take me to task?" I demanded,
angrily. "I'll like anything I please, and without asking your permission.
If I cared more for the _Peterkin Papers_ than I do for Shakespeare, I
wouldn't be accountable to you, and that's all there is about it."
"Never mind who I am," said the visitor. "Suffice to say that I am myself.
You'll know my name soon enough. In fact, you will pronounce it
involuntarily the first thing when you wake in the morning, and then--"
Here he shook his head ominously, and I felt myself grow rigid with fright
in my chair. "Now for the final trick," he said, after a moment's pause.
"Think of where you would most like to be at this moment, and I'll exert
my power to put you there. Only close your eyes first."
I closed my eyes and wished. When I opened them I was in the billiard-room
of the Gutenberg Club with Perkins and Tompson.
"For Heaven's sake, Spencer," they said, in surprise, "where did you drop
in from? Why, man, you are as white as a sheet. And what a necktie! Take
it off!"
"Grab hold of me, boys, and hold me fast," I pleaded, falling on my knees
in terror. "If you don't, I believe I'll die."
The idea of returning to my sanctum was intolerably dreadful to me.
"Ha! ha!" laughed the magician, for even as I spoke to Perkins and Tompson
I found myself seated opposite my infernal visitor in my room once more.
"They couldn't keep you an instant with me summoning you back."
His laughter was terrible; his frown was pleasanter; and I felt myself
gradually losing control of my senses.
"Go," I cried. "Leave me, or you will have the crime of murder on your
conscience."
"I have no con--" he began; but I heard no more.
That is the last I remember of that fearful night. I must have fainted,
and then have fallen into a deep slumber.
[Illustration]
When I waked it was morning, and I was alone, but undressed and in bed,
unconscionably weak, and surrounded by medicine bottles of many kinds. The
clock on the mantle on the other side of the room indicated that it was
after ten o'clock.
"_Great Beelzebub!_" I cried, taking note of the hour. "I've an engagement
with Barlow at nine."
And then a sweet-faced woman, who, I afterwards learned, was a
professional nurse, entered the room, and within an hour I realized two
facts. One was that I had lain ill for many days, and that my engagement
with Barlow was now for six weeks unfulfilled; the other, that my midnight
visitor was none other than--
And yet I don't know. His tricks certainly were worthy of that individual;
but Perkins and Tompson assert that I never entered the club that night,
and surely if my visitor was Beelzebub himself he would not have omitted
so important a factor of success as my actual presence in the
billiard-room on that occasion would have been; and, besides, he was
altogether too cool to have come from his reputed residence.
Altogether I think the episode most unaccountable, particularly when I
reflect that while no trace of my visitor was discoverable in my room the
next morning, as my nurse tells me, my blue necktie was in reality found
upon the floor, crushed and torn into a shapeless bundle of frayed rags.
As for the club entertainment, I am told that, despite my absence, it was
a wonderful success, redeemed from failure, the treasurer of the club
said, by the voluntary services of a guest, who secured admittance on one
of my cards, and who executed some sleight-of-hand tricks that made the
members tremble, and whose mind-reading feats performed on the club's
butler not only made it necessary for him to resign his office, but
disclosed to the House Committee the whereabouts of several cases of rare
wines that had mysteriously disappeared.