excited, and there is not the slightest cause for it. I will
explain the whole affair to you. It is simple enough. You know
that study is the great object of my life. I study all sorts of
things; and just now I am greatly interested in hypnotism. The
subject has become fascinating to me. I have made a great many
successful trials of my power, and the affair of this afternoon
was nothing but a trial of my powers on a more extensive scale
than anything I have yet attempted. I wanted to see if it were
possible for me to hypnotize a considerable number of people
without any one suspecting what I intended to do. The result was
a success. I hypnotized all those people by means of the first
part of my performance, which consisted of some combinations of
colored glass with lights thrown upon them. They revolved, and
looked like fireworks, and were strung on a wire high up on the
stage.

"I kept up the glittering and dazzling show--which was well
worth seeing, I can assure you--until the people had been
straining their eyes upward for almost half an hour. And this
sort of thing--I will tell you if you do not know it--is one of
the methods of producing hypnotic sleep.

"There was no one present who was not an impressionable
subject, for I was very careful in sending out my invitations,
and when I became almost certain that my audience was thoroughly
hypnotized, I stopped the show and began the real exhibition,
which was not really for their benefit, but for mine.

"Of course, I was dreadfully anxious for fear I had not
succeeded entirely, and that there might be at least some one