glass dish, half full of water, and having a
dark brown fly paper floating on the surface. He brought it across to
the table at which I sat, and having drained the water into a jug near
by, left the paper sticking to the bottom.

This done, he took a tiny leather case from his pocket and a small
bottle out of that again. From this bottle he poured a few drops of some
highly pungent liquid on to the paper, with the result that it grew
black as ink and threw off a tiny vapour, which licked the edges of the
bowl and curled upwards in a faint spiral column.

"There, Mr. Hatteras, this is a--well, a trick--I learned from an old
woman in Benares. It is a better one than the last and will repay your
interest. If you will look on that paper for a moment, and try to
concentrate your attention, you will see something that will, I think,
astonish you."

Hardly believing that I should see anything at all I looked. But for
some seconds without success. My scepticism, however, soon left me. At
first I saw only the coarse grain of the paper and the thin vapour
rising from it. Then the knowledge that I was gazing into a dish
vanished. I forget my companion and the previous conjuring trick. I saw
only a picture opening out before me--that of a handsomely furnished
room, in which was a girl sitting in an easy chair crying as if her
heart were breaking. The room I had never seen before, but the girl I
should have known among a thousand. _She was Phyllis, my sweetheart!_

I looked and looked, and as I gazed at her, I heard her call my name.
"Oh, Dick! Dick! come to me!" Instantly I sprang to my feet, meaning to
cross the room to her. Next moment I became aware of a loud crash. The
scene vanished, my senses came back to me; and to my astonishment I
found myself standing alongside the overturned restaurant table. The
glass dish lay on the floor, shattered into a thousand fragments. My
friend, the conjuror, had disappeared.

Having righted the table again, I went downstairs and explained my
misfortune. When I had paid my bill I took my departure, more troubled
in mind than I cared to confess. That it was only what he had called it,
a conjuring trick, I felt I ought to be certain, but still it was clever
and uncanny enough to render me very uncomfortable.

In vain I tried to drive the remembrance of the scene I had witnessed
from my brain, but it would not be dispelled. At length, to satisfy
myself, I resolved that if the memory of it r