wig.

"Forgive me," said the little gentleman. He spoke in English, with a
strong accent. "But it seems to me here is a case where two parties
might be of service to one another."

The six fellow-travellers round the table looked at one another, but
none spoke. The idea that came to each of them, as they explained to
one another later, was that without remembering it they had taken their
candles and had gone to bed. This was surely a dream.

"It would greatly assist me," continued the little peak-faced gentleman,
"in experiments I am conducting into the phenomena of human tendencies,
if you would allow me to put your lives back twenty years."

Still no one of the six replied. It seemed to them that the little
old gentleman must have been sitting there among them all the time,
unnoticed by them.

"Judging from your talk this evening," continued the peak-faced little
gentleman, "you should welcome my offer. You appear to me to be one and
all of exceptional intelligence. You perceive the mistakes that you have
made: you understand the causes. The future veiled, you could not help
yourselves. What I propose to do is to put you back twenty years.
You will be boys and girls again, but with this difference: that the
knowledge of the future, so far as it relates to yourselves, will remain
with you.

"Come," urged the old gentleman, "the thing is quite simple of
accomplishment. As--as a certain philosopher has clearly proved: the
universe is only the result of our own perceptions. By what may appear
to you to be magic--by what in reality will be simply a chemical
operation--I remove from your memory the events of the last twenty
years, with the exception of what immediately concerns your own
personalities. You will retain all knowledge of the changes, physical
and mental, that will be in store for you; all else will pass from your
perception."

The little old gentleman took a small phial from his waistcoat pocket,
and, filling one of the massive wine-glasses from a decanter, measured
into it some half-a-dozen drops. Then he placed the glass in the centre
of the table.

"Youth is a good time to go back to," said the peak-faced little
gentleman, with a smile. "Twenty years ago, it was the night of the Hunt
Ball. You remember it?"

It was Everett who drank first. He drank it with his little twinkling
eyes fixed hungrily on the proud handsome face of Mrs. Camelford; and
then handed the glass to his wife. It was she perh