The Pacific commercial advertiser., 1906-08-05

fellow officers he was once sitting at
mess in India in a room twenty-five
feet long and fifteen feet wide, lighted
oy a row of twenty gas-jets along the
cornice a fakir appeared soliciting
aims. The officers promised the fakir
liberal contributions if he would give
them a novel exhibition of magic.
He lifted his left arm and pointed
his finger at a gas-jet in the corner
OF the cornice; after moment 1T went
out. He pointed at the next one, and
it was extinguished also; and at the
next, and the next, In this way he
had soon made the circuit of the room,
and there now remained only one gas
jet alight. By that time, as you may
suppose, we had become a good deal
interested. The man stopped to rub
his left arm lightly with his right hand
for a few moments; then he pointed
at the final gas-jet, and out it went,
leaving us in total darkness.
do the sahibs wish the lights re
stored?" asked the voice of the fakir
out of the darkness. We intimated
that we did, and Immediately the light
which had been last extinguished ap-
peared again, and by its illumination
we saw the fellow in the same attitude
as before, except that this time it was
with his right finger instead Of with
his left that he was pointing. To
make short story of it, he relighted
every burner in reverse order until the
whole twenty were going again. Now
are the sahibs satistled?" he asked
They were, of course, astounded, but
they feigned Indifference, in the hope
of seeing further wonders.
He seemed a little annoyed; but after
standing with his hands folded in
front of him and his head bent on his
breast for a minute, he looked up, and
his eyes met those of every man in the
room, one after the other. He then
said, in slow. measured tones, mo sahib
may leave his chair and turned round
and walked out of the room.
We laughed, and supposed that he
had given us up as too skeptical for his
purposes. We resumed our converse
ton, and in ten minutes had forgotten
all about him. Then one of us, Gen
eral Gatacre-though he wasn't a gem
eral then-said that he must be getting
back to his quarters and started to
rise from his chair; but after seeming
to struggle for a moment he settled
back, and his face turned red. What
the deuce is the matter?' he exclaim-
ed. can get up.
Some of US laughed; but I remember
ed the last words of the fakir, and
made an effort to stand. I could not
stir from my seat. Lieutenant Chol-
nondeley. my neighbor on the left, saw
my predicament, and tried to get up
himself. He was pinned to his place,
just as Gatacre and I were
At that every man caught the idea,
and for several minutes there was as
queer a scene as ever I saw-twelve
strong young fellows striving their
best to get up out of their chairs, and
every one of them as helpless as a
paralytic.
The sensation, as I felt it, was an
odd one-something like ones failure
to remember a name or a word that
is on the tip of the tongue, only this
was a physical instead of mental
1 could not bring power to
bear at the right point. By and by we
all gave it up.
We had sat there a good half-hour
before the old rascaFs head appeared
round the door-post, and he asked, in
his whining voice: DO the sahibs de-
sire any other experiment.
No. we had had enough; and he went
away with more plunder in his wallet
than he had ever collected at one time
before. All he did was to say "The
sahibs may now rise" and we were all
on our feet in an instant: but it was
worth the money. OF course, the thing
can be explained on the theory of hyp-
notism; but whatever it was, it was
impressive.