I would say more of my séances and all the recollections they evoke,
were I not impatient to get back to du Maurier and to Malines. Once on
the experiences of those days, I have much to relate--pros and cons,
if you please, for that subtle magnetic fluid, which, without physical
contact, one human being can transmit to another, is a ticklish one
to handle. I cannot pack my pen, though, and take train of thought to
the Belgian city without mentioning my friend Allongé, the well-known
French artist, then a fellow-student of mine at the Ecole des Beaux
Arts. A chance contact of our knees as we sat closely packed with some
sixty other students put me on the track of a new subject, perhaps the
most interesting one it was ever my good fortune to come across. But
of him another time.

Using the privilege of a mesmerist, I elect to will the reader--that
is, if natural slumber has not ere this put him beyond my
control--across the frontier, into the back parlour of Mrs. L.'s
tobacco store. There I am operating on a boy--such a stupid little
Flemish boy that no amount of fluid could ever make him clever. How I
came to treat him to passes I don't remember; probably I used him as
an object-lesson to amuse Carry. All I recollect is that I gave him
a key to hold, and made him believe that it was red-hot and burnt
his fingers, or that it was a piece of pudding to be eaten presently,
thereby making him howl and grin alternately.

In the middle of our séance Carry is called away by a customer, one
of the swells of Malines much addicted to a poetical expression of his
admiration for the fair sex in general and for Carry in particular.
Greatly to our edification, she was pleased to improve the occasion by
leading him on, within our hearing, to make what is commonly called a