s came and waked me up and told me that the performance was over. I
rubbed my eyes and looked about me. It was true, the great auditorium
was empty, and was gradually darkening. I put on my hat and walked out
refreshed, having slept from five twenty until twelve, or six hours and
forty minutes, straight. That was one instance. Two weeks later I went
again, this time to hear _Die Goetherdammerung_. The results were the
same, only the effect was instantaneous. The curtain had hardly risen
before I retired to the little ante-room of the box our party occupied
and dozed off into a fathomless sleep. I didn't wake up this time until
nine o'clock the next day, the rest of the party having gone off without
awakening me, as a sort of joke. Clearly Wagner, according to my way of
thinking, then deserves to rank among the most effective narcotics known
to modern science. I have tried all sorts of other things--sulfonal,
trionel, bromide powders, and all the rest and not one of them produced
anything like the soporific results that two doses of Wagner brought
about in one instant, and best of all there was no reaction. No
splitting headache or shaky hand the next day, but just the calm, quiet,
contented feeling that goes with the sense of having got completely
rested up."

"You run a dreadful risk, however," said the Doctor, with a sarcastic
smile. "The Wagner habit is a terrible thing to acquire, Mr. Idiot."

"That may be," said the Idiot. "Worse than the sulfonal habit by a great
deal I am told, but I am in no danger of becoming a victim to it while
it costs from five to seven dollars a dose. In addition to this
experience I have also the testimony of a friend of mine who was cured
of a frightful attack of the colic by Sullivan's Lost Chord played on a
Cornet. He had spent the day down at Asbury Park and had eaten not
wisely but too copiously. Among other things that he turned loose in his
inner man were two plates of Lobster Salade, a glass of fresh cider and
a saucerful of pistache ice-cream. He was a painter by profession and
the color scheme he thus introduced into his digestive apparatus was too
much for his artistic soul. He was not fitted by temperament to
assimilate anything quite so strenuously chromatic as that, and as a
consequence shortly after he had retired to his studio for the night
the conflicting tints began to get in their deadly work and within two
hours he was completely doubled up. The pain he suffered was aw