reluctance of my parents to renounce the obvious advantages of the new
_régime_ I would gladly have reverted to the old. The plan that I
finally adopted to free myself from the consequences of my own powers
excited a wide and keen interest at the time, and that part of it which
consisted in the death of the girl was severely condemned, but it is
hardly pertinent to the scope of this narrative.

For some years afterward I had little opportunity to practice hypnotism;
such small essays as I made at it were commonly barren of other
recognition than solitary confinement on a bread-and-water diet;
sometimes, indeed, they elicited nothing better than the
cat-o'-nine-tails. It was when I was about to leave the scene of these
small disappointments that my one really important feat was performed.

I had been called into the warden's office and given a suit of
civilian's clothing, a trifling sum of money and a great deal of advice,
which I am bound to confess was of a much better quality than the
clothing. As I was passing out of the gate into the light of freedom I
suddenly turned and looking the warden gravely in the eye, soon had him
in control.

"You are an ostrich," I said.

At the post-mortem examination the stomach was found to contain a great
quantity of indigestible articles mostly of wood or metal. Stuck fast in
the oesophagus and constituting, according to the Coroner's jury, the
immediate cause of death, one door-knob.

I was by nature a good and affectionate son, but as I took my way into
the great world from which I had been so long secluded I could not help