the Russian. "You can touch neither the beginning nor the end of it. Do
not its most cherished pleasures fly you even as you are in the very act
of trying to grasp them? Do you know for certain that you--you
yourself--are really here?--that you do not merely dream that you are
here? What do you know?"

"Your theories are too far-fetched for me," said Ducie. "A dream can be
nothing more than itself--nothing can give it backbone or substance. To
me such things are of no more value than the shadow I cast behind me
when I walk in the sun."

"And yet without substance there could be no shadow," snarled the
Russian.

"Do your experiences in any way resemble those recorded by De Quincey?"

"They do and do not," answered Platzoff. "I can often trace, or fancy
that I can, a slight connecting likeness, arising probably from the fact
that in the case of both of us a similar, or nearly similar, agent was
employed for a similar purpose. But, as a rule, the intellectual
difference between any two men is sufficient to render their experiences
in this respect utterly dissimilar."

"It does not follow, I presume, that all the visions induced by the
imbibing of opium, or what you term drashkil, are pleasant ones?"

"By no means. You cannot have forgotten what De Quincey has to say on
that score. But whether they are pleasant or the contrary, I accept them
as so much experience, and in so far I am satisfied. You look
incredulous, but I tell you, sir, that what I see, and what I