ondition of
things was the necessary secrecy: the transfer of the luncheon, for
example, had to be made at some distance from the madding crowd, in a
wood; and I blush to think of the many other unworthy subterfuges
entailed by the situation. As I was (and am) naturally of a frank and
open disposition, these became more and more irksome, and but for the
reluctance of my parents to renounce the obvious advantages of the new
regime I would gladly have reverted to the old. The plan that I
finally adopted to free myself from the consequences of my own powers
excited a wide and keen interest at the time, and that part of it
which consisted in the death of the girl was severely condemned, but
it is hardly pertinent to the scope of this narrative.

For some years afterward I had little opportunity to practice
hypnotism; such small essays as I made at it were commonly barren of
other recognition than solitary confinement on a bread-and-water diet;
sometimes, indeed, they elicited nothing better than the
cat-o'-nine-tails. It was when I was about to leave the scene of
these small disappointments that my one really important feat was
performed.

I had been called into the warden's office and given a suit of
civilian's clothing, a trifling sum of money and a great deal of
advice, which I am bound to confess was of a much better quality than
the clothing. As I was passing out of the gate into the light of
freedom I suddenly turned and looking the warden gravely in the eye,
soon had him in control.

"You are an ostrich," I said.

At the post-mortem examination the stomach was found to contain a
great quantity of indigestible articles mostly of wood or metal.
Stuck fast in the esophagus and constituting, according to the
Coroner's jury, the immediate cause of death, one door-knob.

I was by nature a good and affectionate son, but as I took my way into
the great world from which I had been so long secluded I could not
help remembering that all my misfortunes had flowed like a stream from
the niggard economy of my parents in the matter of school luncheons;
and I knew of no reason to think they had reformed.

On the road between Succotash Hill and South Asphyxia is a little open
field which once contained a shanty known as Pete Gilstrap's Place,
where that gentleman used to murder travelers for a living. The death
of Mr. Gilstrap and the diversion of nearly all the travel to another
road occurred so nearly at the same time