of these
spells, over a thousand were sold, the applicants being mostly shop
girls, typists, clerks and servants; in the second week the sales rose
to three thousand, and every succeeding week showed a still greater
increase.

In charging the magnes microcosmi, the motive of the purchaser had
always to be taken into account. If the love charm were wanted by a
woman--a housekeeper may be, who desired some rich old man to fall in
love with her, in order that she might come into his property; or by a
woman--a companion probably--who, having wormed herself into the
confidence of some eccentric old lady, was anxious that that lady
should leave her all her money--Hamar took care that the magnes
microcosmi should be charged with a lasting infatuation; and the sale
of this love spell--the spell that was sought solely that the
purchaser might inherit property to which he (or she) had no
claim--far exceeded the sale of any other spell. Indeed, it was
extraordinary how many people--people one would never have
suspected--desired spells that would do other people harm.

Lady De Greene, the well-known humanitarian, who was most
indefatigable in getting up petitions to the Home Secretary, whenever
the perpetrator of any particularly heinous and inexcusable murder was
about to be hanged, and who was universally acknowledged "incapable of
harming a fly," called, surreptitiously, on Hamar.

"I understand," she said, "everything you do here is in strict
confidence!"

"Certainly, madam, certainly!" Hamar said. "We make it a point of
honour to divulge--nothing!"

"That being so," Lady De Greene observed, "I want you to tell me of a
spell that will hasten some very obnoxious person's death."

"If you will give me a rough idea of their personal appearance," Hamar
said, "I will make a wax image of them, and undertake they will
trouble you no longer."

But Lady De Greene shook her head. She had no desire to commit
herself.

"Can't you do it in any other way," she said, "can't you let me give
them an unlucky charm--the sort of thing that might bring about a taxi
disaster?"

Hamar thought for a moment and then--smiled.

"Yes!" he said, "I think I can accommodate you."

Leaving her for a few minutes, he went to the laboratory, and from a
tin box marked homicidal lunatic, he took a plain, gold ring. With
this he returned to Lady De Greene, murmuring on the way the prayer he
had learned from the table.

"Here you are," he said han