engeful career by a mere exertion of my will, therefore
the poor fellow who has escaped was at no time in danger."

So I was not in disgrace. I returned to the platform a hero, and happier
than I have ever been in this world since. As regards mental suggestion,
my fears of it were gone. I judged that in case I failed to guess what
the professor might be willing me to do, I could count on putting up
something that would answer just as well. I was right, and exhibitions
of unspoken suggestion became a favorite with the public. Whenever I
perceived that I was being willed to do something I got up and did
something--anything that occurred to me--and the magician, not being a
fool, always ratified it. When people asked me, "How _can_ you tell what
he is willing you to do?" I said, "It's just as easy," and they always
said, admiringly, "Well it beats _me_ how you can do it."

Hicks was weak in another detail. When the professor made passes over
him and said "his whole body is without sensation now--come forward and
test him, ladies and gentlemen," the ladies and gentlemen always
complied eagerly, and stuck pins into Hicks, and if they went deep Hicks
was sure to wince, then that poor professor would have to explain that
Hicks "wasn't sufficiently under the influence." But I didn't wince; I
only suffered, and shed tears on the inside. The miseries that a
conceited boy will endure to keep up his "reputation"! And so will a
conceited man; I know it in my own person, and have seen it in a hundred
thousand others. That professor ought to have protected me, and I often
hoped he would, when the tests were unusually severe, but he didn't. It
may be that he was deceived as well as the others, though I did not
believe it nor think it possible. Those were dear good people, but they
must have carried simplicity and credulity to the limit. They would
stick a pin in my arm and bear on it until they drove it a third of its
length in, and then be lost in wonder that by a mere exercise of
will-power the professor could turn my arm to iron and make it
insensible to pain. Whereas it was not insensible at all; I was
suffering agonies of pain.

After that fourth night, that proud night, that triumphant night, I was
the only subject. Simmons invited no more candidates to the platform. I
performed alone, every night, the rest of the fortnight. In the
beginning of the second week I conquered the last doubters. Up to that
time a dozen wise old head