"Though it's French, and from the 'Telegraph,'" said Lefevre, "I see no
reason to disbelieve it."

"Come," said Embro, "come--you're shirking the question."

"I confess," said Lefevre, "I've no desire to discuss it. You think me
prejudiced in favour of anything of the kind; perhaps I think you
prejudiced against it: where, then, is the good of discussion?"

"Well, now," said the unabashed Embro, "I'll tell you what I think.
Here's a story"--Julius at that instant handed back the paper to
him--"of a healthy young woman mesmerised, hypnotised, or somnambulised,
or whatever you like to call it, in the public street, by some man that
casually comes up to her, and her brain so affected that her memory
goes! I say it's inconceivable!--impossible!" And he slapped the paper
down on the table.

The others looked on with grim satisfaction at the prospect of an
argument between the two representatives of rival schools; and it was
noteworthy that, as they looked, they turned a referring glance on
Courtney, as if it were a foregone conclusion that he must be the final
arbiter. He, however, sat abstracted, with his eyes on the floor, and
with one hand propping his chin and the other drumming on the arm of his
chair.

"I'm not a scientific man," said the journalist who was not an Art
critic, "and I am not prejudiced either way about this story; but it
seems to me, Embro, that you view the thing through a very ordinary
fallacy, and make a double mistake. You confound the relatively