Amusement Only
Copyright© 2025 by Richard Marsh
His First Experiment
Chapter 1: The Lady.
Last winter George Pownceby spent some weeks at the Empire Hotel. One morning he was coming along the corridor leading from the smoking-room when he met Mrs. Pratt. The lady stopped.
“What is that you have in your hand?” she asked.
Mr. Pownceby had in his hand a slim pamphlet, in a green paper cover. He held it up.
“I’ve got it!”
“No?”
“Yes!”
“Oh, I say!”
These remarks are not given here as examples of English conversation, but with a view of presenting the reader with an accurate report of what was spoken. There was a pause. Then the lady said, with great solemnity:--
“You don’t mean to say that it has actually come?”
“I do!” Mr. Pownceby held out the slim pamphlet at arm’s length in front of him. He pointed at it with the index-finger of his other hand: “‘How to Hypnotise. A Practical Treatise. Hints to Amateurs. With full instructions for marvellous experiments. Price 7d. post free, eight stamps.’”
“Oh, Mr. Pownceby, I am so sorry.”
“Sorry, Mrs. Pratt! Why, it was, at your instigation I plunged to the extent of those eight stamps.”
“But you don’t understand; my husband’s coming; I have to meet him at the station at 12.32.” Mr. Pownceby stroked his moustache; there was not much, but he was fond of stroking what there was of it. Mrs. Pratt’s husband had been rather a joke. People who winter in hotels are, as a rule, quite prepared to be epigrammatic at the expense of a pretty married woman whose husband is not in evidence. And Mrs. Pratt’s husband had not been in evidence--as yet.
“I don’t quite follow you.” Mr. Pownceby spoke with a little malice. “Whence your sorrow? Because your husband is coming by the 12.32?”
“Don’t you see, I want to be the first to be experimented on. I’ve been waiting for that book two days, and now it just comes when I can’t stay. Don’t’ you think there’s time? Come into my sitting-room.”
They went into her sitting-room. When they were there, the lady again assailed the gentleman with the inquiry:
“Don’t you think there’s time?”
“It depends. I think you’re going too fast. To commence with, I’ve been looking through the thing in the smoking-room, and I believe it’s a swindle.”
“A swindle! Oh, don’t say that.”
“It’s nothing but a hash of old mesmeric tricks I’ve seen performed at country fairs.”
“But doesn’t it tell you how to do them?”
“It pretends to. It gives some ridiculous directions--but I don’t believe they can be done that way.”
“Try!--do!--on me!”
Mr. Pownceby laughed. Mrs. Pratt amused him; and not for the first time either.
“To begin with, we have to sit face to face and stare at each other for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour.”
“Come along! Let’s begin.”
The lady brought forward a couple of chairs and they sat down on them, face to face; and very close together. Opening the pamphlet, Mr. Pownceby searched for further instructions.
“You’re not staring at me,” remarked the lady.
“Half a minute; I’m looking for what comes next.”
“What does it say? Read it aloud.”
“After I’ve stared at you long enough----It doesn’t sound civil, does it?”
“Never mind the civility; go on!”
“‘After I’ve stared at you long enough, you begin to feel queer. Then’”--Mr. Pownceby read from the pamphlet, “‘Place the thumb of your left hand on the subject’s forehead’--you’re the subject--’just above the nose, and level with the eyebrows.’” Mrs. Pratt placed her pretty little hand above her pretty little nose to point out the exact spot denoted. Mr. Pownceby read on. “‘This is the locality of the Phrenological Organ of Individuality.’”
“Is it?” said Mrs. Pratt in an awe-struck whisper. The reader continued:
“‘Rest the ends of your fingers on the top of the subject’s head. At the same time take hold of the left hand with your right hand, applying the inside part of your thumb to the middle of the palm of the hand.’ I’m punctuating this,” interpolated Mr. Pownceby, “as I go on. The man who printed it seems to have had a fount of type containing no other stops but commas. ‘The object of this is for the operator to get in contact with two very important nerves that pass in the palm of the hand which are called Ulnar and Median nerves’--I don’t know if that’s true, or what it means, but it says so here--’with your left hand, still keeping the thumb on the forehead between the eyes, and the fingers resting on the subject’s head, which must be inclined slightly back. Say, “Look into my eyes.” After gazing in his eyes intently for a few seconds, say in a loud, clear, firm tone of voice, “Close your eyes quite tight.” Let him remain a few seconds like this,’--and the trick is done. There’s a lot more nonsense to follow, but when you’ve remained for a few seconds like that you’re supposed to be mesmerised, or hypnotised, or whatever they call the thing.”
“Really! It sounds quite simple.”
“It does--simple folly.”
“Hush! You shouldn’t speak like that. Perhaps, if you don’t believe, you mayn’t succeed.”
“It says something to that effect in these precious pages.”
“Then try to believe. Let us begin.”
They began. The lady was preternaturally solemn, but the gentleman was tortured by a desire to smile. He felt that the lady might resent his laughter. Under these circumstances the ten minutes’ stare was trying. Mrs. Pratt had sweet blue eyes, which were large and round--the sort of eyes which the average man would not object to stare at for ten minutes or even longer. As the appointed space of time drew to a conclusion even Mr. Pownceby became reconciled to his lot. He placed his left thumb on the lady’s forehead above her nose.
“Is that level with my eyebrows?” she inquired. He reproved her.
“I don’t think you ought to speak. You destroy the connection.”
Mrs. Pratt was dumb. Mr. Pownceby proceeded in accordance with the directions contained in the pamphlet. He rested the tips of his fingers on the top of the lady’s head. He took hold of her left hand with his right. He applied the “inside part” of his thumb to the centre of her palm. He said to her:
“Look into my eyes.”
She looked into his eyes, her head inclined a little backwards. This part of the proceedings was, so far as the gentleman was concerned, on the whole agreeable. He gazed fixedly into her pretty eyes. Then he added, in a “loud, clear, firm tone of voice”:
“Close your eyes quite tight.”
She closed her eyes. There was a pause for a few seconds. Remembering the instructions contained in the pamphlet, he proceeded another step:
“You cannot open your eyes,” he said. “Your eyes are fast, quite fast.”
The pamphlet had it, “Should the subject be very sensitive he will be unable to open them.” Apparently the subject, though in this case feminine, was very sensitive. At least Mrs. Pratt kept her eyes shut fast. Mr. Pownceby was a little startled. He removed his touch from her brow and released her hand.
“Mrs. Pratt, are you hypnotised already?” Mrs. Pratt was silent. “Mrs. Pratt, you don’t mean you’re really hypnotised?” Still silence. He leant forward and stared at the lady, not in the same way he had done before, but quite as fixedly. “By Jove! I believe she is!” He got up from the chair. He glanced at the pamphlet. He wanted to know how to reverse the process--how to bring the lady to again.
“This is a pretty state of things! The thing is not such a swindle as I thought it was. But it’s all nonsense. She can’t be magnetised, or mesmerised, or hypnotised, or whatever it is. If she is, the thing’s as easy as winking. If I’d only known it I’d have been mesmerising people since the days of childhood. Mrs. Pratt!”
But Mrs. Pratt was silent. If she was not “hypnotised,” then she was in some condition which was equally curious. She sat back in her chair, with her face turned up to the ceiling, in a state of the most complete quiescence. Something in her appearance struck Mr. Pownceby as even unpleasantly odd. He recommenced searching down the page of the green covered pamphlet for the reversal process. It was beautifully simple.
“In order to release him,” the pamphlet said--throughout the writer had taken it for granted that the “subject” would be masculine--”blow a sharp, cold wind from your mouth on his eyes, and say with authority, ‘Now you can open them.’ Repeat if necessary. It is important to recollect that a cold wind blown from the operator destroys the effect and demagnetises.”
One could not but suspect that some subjects might not like this. But its simplicity was charming. If that was all that was necessary, then, so far as Mr. Pownceby was concerned, the whole science of hypnotism was already mastered.
He approached Mrs. Pratt. He bent over her, devoutly hoping that no one might enter the room as he was engaged in doing so. Quite a shock went through him as he advanced his face towards hers, the expression of her countenance was so very much like death. He blew a “cold wind” on her eyes--those pretty blue eyes, whose cerulean hue he had veiled.
“Now you can open them.”
The words were spoken with as much “authority” as he could muster in the then agitated state of his mind; but Mrs. Pratt did not open them. The pamphlet said, “Repeat if necessary.” Mr. Pownceby repeated. He blew, and he blew. He blew the “cold wind” all out of him, so that the beads of perspiration stood upon his brow, but still the “subject” gave no signs.
“Mrs. Pratt! Mrs. Pratt! I say, Mrs. Pratt, for heaven’s sake do look at me!”
All signs of “authority” had gone from him now. But wind and voice alike were ineffectual. Apparently it was easier to hypnotise than to do the other thing. In his trouble Mr. Pownceby told himself that the writer of that pamphlet was--well, untrustworthy. Or else something had gone wrong in the working. But what could it be? He looked at his watch.
“Half-past twelve! I shall have her husband here directly. I imagine that he will make some observations if he finds his wife like this.”
Such a contingency was only to be expected. When a man, after long absence from his wife, returns to find a stranger experimenting on her, and she in a “hypnotic” condition, from which the stranger cannot release her, his first feelings towards that stranger are not, in civilised countries, invariably friendly. Mr. Pownceby, when he had blown the “cold wind” all out of him, arrived at a resolution.
“I will tell Doris. I must get her to help me. It is quite certain that, whatever happens, I mustn’t let that man come and find me alone with his wife.”
It was only the dread of such a catastrophe that brought him to the “sticking-point” of his resolution. Miss Haseltine--christened Doris--was Mr. Pownceby’s betrothed. She also was wintering in the hotel with her mamma. Mr. Pownceby was aware, even painfully aware, that the young lady’s feelings towards Mrs. Pratt were not of the warmest possible kind. He was equally conscious that her impression was that his feelings were, if anything, too warm. He would rather anything had happened, almost, than that he should have been reduced to the necessity of acquainting Miss Haseltine with the situation he was in. But it was certainly impossible for him to allow the returning husband to come in and find him there, alone with his wife, and she apparently in a chronic hypnotic condition.
So he went in search of the young lady. Of course he found her where he would have least wished to find her--in the drawing-room with the ladies. He had to call her out, and at first she wouldn’t come.
But as it would have been impossible for him to tell his tale in the presence of a dozen sharp-eared and sharp-tongued women, he protested that there was something of the utmost importance which he must say to her alone. “Well, what is it?” she asked, directly he had got her outside the door. He perceived that she was not in one of her sentimental moods. Perhaps something in his manner had roused her suspicions.
“Mrs. Pratt has fainted.”
“Indeed? What has that to do with me? Let her faint. She looks to me as though she were the sort of person who could faint at pleasure.”
“Doris, for goodness’ sake hear me out; I want your help. It’s through me she’s fainted.”
“Pray what do you mean?”
“It’s--it’s this confounded thing.” Mr. Pownceby held out the slim, green-covered pamphlet. “You know I told you I’d written for that pamphlet, ‘How to Hypnotise.’ Well, the thing came this morning; here it is! I’ve been experimenting on her, and I’ve not only hypnotised her, but, by George, I can’t get her round again.”
“A pretty state of things, upon my word.”
“Don’t pitch into me now, Doris, don’t. There she is in her sitting-room in a fit or something; I don’t know what’s the matter with her; and her husband’s coming this morning.”
“He is coming at last, is he?”
“I expect him every moment; he’s due at 12.32.”
“She seems to have told you all about it.”
“She told me so much, at any rate. I know I’ve been an ass, I can see that now, but lend me a hand first, and let me have it afterwards. I was obliged to come to you. I couldn’t let him find me alone with her in such a state as that. Come and see what you can do for her, there’s a darling, do! After all, it’s for me, you know, not her.”
Miss Haseltine yielded so far as to advance with him along the corridor. There was a fresh arrival when they reached the hall--a gentleman. He was speaking to the young lady, who acted as book-keeper, through the office window.
“My name is Pratt--Gilead J. Pratt. I believe my wife is staying here.”
Mr. Pownceby clutched Miss Haseltine’s arm.
“It’s he!” he whispered.
“There is a Mrs. Pratt staying here,” replied the book-keeper. “Her sitting-room is No. 13.”
The new arrival was about to be ushered into No. 13, when Mr. Pownceby interposed. He hurried across the hall and touched him on the shoulder. “Excuse me, may I speak to you? My name is Pownceby.”
The new arrival turned and faced him. As he did so Mr. Pownceby perceived, a little dimly perhaps, what sort of a man he was. He was of medium height, slightly built, about forty years of age, very dark, with a clean-shaven face and a pair of keen black eyes, which looked at Mr. Pownceby as though they meant to pierce him.
“Delighted to hear you speak, or any man, even if his name’s not Pownceby.”
Directly the words were spoken Mr. Pownceby became conscious that the new arrival was an American.
“I believe you are Mr. Pratt--Mrs. Pratt’s husband.”
“I am--worse luck.”
“Eh--she intended to meet you at 12.32.”
“She did, did she? That’s her all through. As she used to be. She never did get farther than intentions. It is about two years since I saw her, and I don’t see her now. Have you a message to deliver? Does she desire that I should go away for another two years? If so, I’m willing.”
As this was said out loud, without the slightest attempt at concealment, so that every word was audible, not only to Mr. Pownceby, to whom the remarks were addressed, but also to Miss Haseltine, and the book-keeper, and the porter, and the boots, and the waiter, and the chambermaid, and any other straggler who might happen to be within fifty yards or so, it would seem that in her husband Mrs. Pratt possessed a man of character. But Mr. Pownceby was not fond of such publicity.
“Can I say a word to you alone?”
“No, sir, you cannot. If you have a message from my wife, say it. If not, lead on to No. 13.”
“The fact is, Mr. Pratt, eh--Mrs. Pratt is not--eh--quite well.”
“Is that so? I’m glad to hear it. It’s a comfort to know that only sickness would keep her from her husband; though it wouldn’t need much of that to keep her from a chance of seeing me.”
“The fact is, I wish, Mr. Pratt, you would let me speak to you alone.”
“No, sir, I will not. If she’s dead, don’t spare my feelings. If she has left me for a better man, don’t spare my feelings either.”
“The fact is, she’s in a hypnotic state.”
“In a what state?”
“A hypnotic state.”
“What state’s that?”
“‘Hypnotic’ ‘s a new word--it’s been brought in lately--it means ‘mesmeric.’”
Mr. Pratt paused before replying. He looked Mr. Pownceby up and down.
“Look here, Mr. ---- I think you mentioned Pownceby; I don’t know who you are, but you seem a friendly kind of man. Take my advice and get something off your chest. I see you’ve got it on.”
Mr. Pownceby smiled, rather faintly. He did not lack presence of mind, as a rule, though just then the situation was as much as he could manage. He made a dash at it.
“I wish you would give me half a minute alone; but, since you will not, I must try to tell my story where we are. You see this book?” Mr. Pownceby held up the fatal treatise. “It contains instructions for the performance of mesmeric experiments. Mrs. Pratt insisted on my performing one of them on her. I succeeded in producing the mesmeric state, but I--I couldn’t get her out of it.”
There was a curious twinkle in Mr. Pratt’s eyes.
“I don’t catch on,” he said.
“I say that I hypnotised her--that is, produced the mesmeric state, but that I--I couldn’t get her out of it.”
“Well?”
“She’s in it now.”
“In what?”
“The mesmeric state.”
“Does she seem to like it?”
“That is more than I can say. I had just induced Miss Haseltine to come to my assistance when we were so fortunate as to encounter you.”
“Then I am to understand that when she ought to have been at the depôt looking out for me, she was engaged in looking out for the mesmeric state along with you; is that so?”
“I’m afraid it is.”
“Where is she?”
“In her sitting-room, No. 13.”
“Lead on to No. 13.”
The procession started. The waiter went first, Mr. Pratt next, and after him Miss Haseltine and Mr. Pownceby. Miss Haseltine’s demeanour was severe. Either her severity or something else seemed to weigh upon her lover, who did not appear to be altogether at his ease. They reached No. 13. The waiter knocked. There was no reply. He knocked again; still no reply. Mr. Pratt turned towards Mr. Pownceby.
“I guess she’s still in that state of yours. I think we’ll all go in.” He turned the handle of the door and entered. “I guess she’s quitted.”
The room was empty.
Chapter 2: And the Gentleman.
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