f vision and unreality.

"Alcohol, alcohol!" it cried, "give me alcohol! It's the quickest way.
Alcohol, before I'm out of reach!"

The doctor, accustomed to rapid decisions and even more rapid action,
remembered that a brandy flask stood upon the mantelpiece, and in less
than a second he had seized it and was holding it out towards the space
above the chair recently occupied by the visible Mudge. Then, before his
very eyes, and long ere he could unscrew the metal stopper, he saw the
contents of the closed glass phial sink and lessen as though some one
were drinking violently and greedily of the liquor within.

"Thanks! Enough! It deadens the vibrations!" cried the faint voice in
his interior, as he withdrew the flask and set it back upon the
mantelpiece. He understood that in Mudge's present condition one side of
the flask was open to space and he could drink without removing the
stopper. He could hardly have had a more interesting proof of what he
had been hearing described at such length.

But the next moment--the very same moment it almost seemed--the German
band stopped midway in its tune--and there was Mr. Mudge back in his
chair again, gasping and panting!

"Quick!" he shrieked, "stop that band! Send it away! Catch hold of me!
Block the entrances! Block the entrances! Give me the red book! Oh, oh,
oh-h-h-h!!!"

The music had begun again. It was merely a temporary interruption. The
_Tannhaeuser_ March started again, this time at a tremendous pace that
made it sound like a rapid two-step as though the instruments played
against time.

But the brief interruption gave Dr. Silence a moment in which to collect
his scattering thoughts, and before the band had got through half a bar,
he had flung forward upon the chair and held Mr. Racine Mudge, the
struggling little victim of Higher Space, in a grip of iron. His arms
went all round his diminutive person, taking in a good part of the chair
at the same time. He was not a big man, yet he seemed to smother Mudge
completely.

Yet, even as he did so, and felt the wriggling form underneath him, it
began to melt and slip away like air or water. The wood of the arm-chair
somehow disentangled itself from between his own arms and those of
Mudge. The phenomenon known as the passage of matter through matter took
place. The little man seemed actually to get mixed up in his own being.
Dr. Silence could just see his face beneath him. It puckered and grew
dark as though from s