In partial explanation of my feelings regarding Dr. Dorrimore I will
relate briefly the circumstances under which I had met him some years
before. One evening a half-dozen men of whom I was one were sitting
in the library of the Bohemian Club in San Francisco. The
conversation had turned to the subject of sleight-of-hand and the
feats of the prestidigitateurs, one of whom was then exhibiting at a
local theatre.

"These fellows are pretenders in a double sense," said one of the
party; "they can do nothing which it is worth one's while to be made
a dupe by. The humblest wayside juggler in India could mystify them
to the verge of lunacy."

"For example, how?" asked another, lighting a cigar.

"For example, by all their common and familiar performances--throwing
large objects into the air which never come down; causing plants to
sprout, grow visibly and blossom, in bare ground chosen by
spectators; putting a man into a wicker basket, piercing him through
and through with a sword while he shrieks and bleeds, and then--the
basket being opened nothing is there; tossing the free end of a
silken ladder into the air, mounting it and disappearing."

"Nonsense!" I said, rather uncivilly, I fear. "You surely do not
believe such things?"

"Certainly not: I have seen them too often."

"But I do," said a journalist of considerable local fame as a
picturesque reporter. "I have so frequently related them that