n any way, "I can see absolutely nothing. The
room is a perfect blur, and I fear I dare not venture out into these
crowded London thoroughfares for the rest of the day. The worst of it
is that the introduction of the cocaine into my eyes has been of no
avail. Of course my eminent friend could not know I was possessed of
such remarkable eyes, and as it was necessary for him to see into
them, no blame attaches to him for having adopted the usual means of
causing my extremely small pupils to expand. Now the curious point is
that my pupils were totally unaffected by the cocaine, and I fear my
eminent friend had to work on me under difficulties. The couple of
hours I spent with him in his wonderful workroom have, however, proved
exceedingly profitable to me. I assure you, my dear sir, they have
been most instructive."

"No doubt," said the military person, his fingers fidgetting uneasily
with his newspaper.

"Between ourselves," continued Archibald confidentially, "I rather
imagine that my friend enjoyed the time I spent with him. It is not
often he gets a really intelligent patient to work on--in fact, he
found me so appreciative that he exhibited especially some profoundly
interesting experiments. Amongst other things, he threw a gigantic
representation of my retinal system of blood vessels on to a white
screen merely by turning a strong light sideways into my eye. And the
explanation of it was quite simple. The retinal vessels stand out
slightly in relief, and thus a perfect shadow of the system is cast on
the retina. It was this shadow I saw, and the white screen was merely
a convenient background for it. I don't know if I make myself clear."

"Perfectly clear, perfectly," said the military person.

"Indeed, John Medhurst seemed quite loth to part with me. I quite
believe he enjoyed the experiments as much as I did. He brought out
his books and very kindly allowed me to inspect the plates--and
extraordinarily fine plates they are!--and thus acquire some idea of
the inner mechanism of the human eye. What a truly wonderful place the
universe is--wonderful!"

"That no intelligent man can deny," said the military person.

"My friend holds a most distinguished position in his profession, and
I esteem it a great honour and privilege to be on such intimate terms
with him," said Archibald, offering a cigar to the other and lighting
one himself. "Now you know," he went on, in a somewhat softened and
more intimate tone; "th