e or less rich.... Oh, well, why worry? Where are
the little glasses?"

His wife brought them, shook hands with the guests, and retired.

Then while Carhaix was pouring the cognac, Des Hermies said in a low
voice, "I did not want to speak before her, because these matters
distress and frighten her, but I received a singular visit this morning
from Gevingey, who is running over to Lyons to see Dr. Johannes. He
claims to have been bewitched by Canon Docre, who, it seems, is making a
flying visit to Paris. What have been their relations? I don't know.
Anyway, Gevingey is in a deplorable state."

"Just what seems to be the matter with him?" asked Durtal.

"I positively do not know. I made a careful auscultation and examined
him thoroughly. He complains of needles pricking him around the heart. I
observed nervous trouble and nothing else. What I am most worried about
is a state of enfeeblement inexplicable in a man who is neither
cancerous nor diabetical."

"Ah," said Carhaix, "I suppose people are not betwitched now with wax
images and needles, with the 'Manei' or the 'Dagyde' as it was called in
the good old days."

"No, those practises are now out of date and almost everywhere fallen
into disuse. Gevingey who took me completely into his confidence this
morning, told me what extraordinary recipes the frightful canon uses.
These are, it seems, the unrevealed secrets of modern magic."

"Ah, that's what interests me," exclaimed Durtal.

"Of course I limit myself to repeating what was told me," resumed Des
Hermies, lighting his cigarette. "Well, Docre keeps white mice in cages,
and he takes them along when he travels. He feeds them on consecrated
hosts and on pastes impregnated with poisons skilfully dosed. When these
unhappy beasts are saturated, he takes them, holds them over a chalice,
and with a very sharp instrument he pricks them here and there. The
blood flows into the vase and he uses it, in a way which I shall explain
in a moment, to strike his enemies with death. Formerly he operated on
chickens and guinea pigs, but he used the grease, not the blood, of
these animals, become thus execrated and venomous tabernacles.

"Formerly he also used a recipe discovered by the Satanic society of the
Re-Theurgistes-Optimates, of which I have spoken before, and he prepared
a hash composed of flour, meat, Eucharist bread, mercury, animal semen,
human blood, acetate of morphine and aspic oil.

"Latterly, and according to