the carved arms of his favorite lounging-chair, even the etchings and
prints on the walls. Suddenly, as he looked at these familiar objects,
a light haze fell over them, giving him for an instant the impression
that a gauze curtain had been dropped between them and his eyes. They
slowly melted away, and in their place he saw the streets of a tiny
village in some foreign country which he did not know. A moment later,
in what seemed at the time a perfectly natural transition from his bed
in an Adirondack club-house, he was walking up the streets of the
little town, in correct tourist attire, looking in vain for a familiar
landmark, and with a strange sinking of the heart. How he got there,
or why he was there, was equally incomprehensible to him. It was high
noon of a warm summer day, and the red roofs of the old buildings
seemed to glow in the heat. Before him, at the end of the street down
which he was walking, was a public square where marketing was going on
in the open. It was crowded with men and women in picturesque peasant
costumes he did not recognize, though he had travelled a great deal.
As he drew nearer he heard them speaking, but discovered that their
tongue was as unknown to him as their garb. He knew French, German,
and Italian well; he had, in addition, a smattering of Spanish, and
was familiar with the accents of Slavic tongues. But this babel that
met his ears was something new. Taken in connection with the rest of
the experience, the discovery sent a cold chill down the spinal column
of Mr. Lawrence Varick. For the first time in his debonair life he was
afraid, and admitted it inwardly, with a sudden whitening of the lips.

"It's so infernally queer," he told himself, uneasily. "If I could
remember how I got here, or if I knew anything about the place--"

"Have you classified them?" asked a voice at his elbow. It was
feminine, contralto, and exquisitely modulated. The words were