that old MS. he found, written by an Atlantean; and the Atlanteans, he
says, were adepts in every form of Occultism. I tell you, this chap
himself scoffed at it at first; and it was more out of curiosity, he
says, than because he was convinced, that he began to experiment. He
afterwards came to the conclusion that the Atlanteans were no fools.
What they had written about the Occult was absolutely correct--there
was another world, and it was possible to get in touch with it. Now,
if Thomas Maitland was able to practise sorcery, why can't we? There
was a gap of close on twenty thousand years between his time and that
of Atlantis, and there's not much more than two hundred years between
his day and ours. But, of course, if you're going to pooh-pooh the
whole thing I won't trouble to tell you any more!"

"Well, Leon," Kelson ejaculated, "magic and sorcery do seem a trifle
out of date, don't they? Could any one look out of the window at what
is going on in the streets below, and at the same time believe in
fairies and hobgoblins? Still the book made a bit of an impression on
me, so that I'm inclined to agree with you. Anyway, go ahead! Ed is
agreeable, aren't you, Ed?"

Curtis gave a sulky nod. "I'm not averse to anything that may put us
in the way of a livelihood," he said.

Hamar, somewhat appeased, briefly informed them of the tests and other
preliminaries necessary for the acquirement of the Black Art, and
without more ado proposed that they--the three of them--should form a
Syndicate and call it the Sorcery Company Limited. "To begin with," he
said, "we might sell tricks and spells, and later on tackle something
more subtle. Why, we could soon knock all the jugglers and doctors on
the head--and make a huge fortune."