nowledge of the marvellous powers of
the science. Let it suffice me to say that by diligent study of it I
eventually acquired such a mastery of it that it has enabled me to--
well, to put it mildly--succeed where but for it I must have failed.
And a large measure of this success is due to the fact that I have
discovered an infallible method of instantly hypnotising a patient
without that patient's knowledge. They are hypnotised, but they don't
know it; haven't the remotest suspicion of it. Then I convey to them a
powerful suggestion that my treatment of them is going to be absolutely
successful, and--there you have the whole secret."

Humphreys paused for a moment, as if considering whether or not he
should say more; then he gazed abstractedly at his carefully kept finger
nails, and his right hand wandered to his waistcoat pocket. Then,
looking up, he extended the hand toward Dick, saying:

"Just lend me your penknife a moment, will you?"

Dick produced the knife and held it out to Humphreys, who looked at it,
then shrank back.

"Good heavens, man," he exclaimed, "I asked for a penknife, not for an
adder! Where did you get that brute from?"

With an inarticulate cry, and an expression of unutterable disgust and
loathing, Maitland dropped the penknife to the floor, and then stamped
on it savagely, grinding the heel of his boot on it as though grinding
the head of a snake into the ground.

"Why, Dick!" exclaimed Humphreys, looking his assistant square in the
eye; "what are you doing? What has that good knife been doing to you
that you should treat it in that barbarous manner?"

Maitland stared back blankly into the Doctor's smiling eyes for a
moment, then looked long at the penknife on the floor, and finally
stooped and cautiously took it between his forefinger and thumb, eyeing
it doubtfully the while. Then he suddenly sat down, pulled out his
pocket handkerchief, and mopped off the perspiration that freely bedewed
his face.

"Well, I'll be shot!" he ejaculated. "What an extraordinary experience!
Will you believe me, Doctor, when I tell you that as I drew this
penknife out of my waistcoat pocket it actually seemed to change into an
adder in my hand? There was the flat, wicked-looking head, the
malevolent eyes, the characteristic markings of the body, and, above
all, there was the feeling of it writhing strongly in my grasp, as
though it were trying to get enough of its length clear to turn and
strike m