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The hypnotist, by Ambrose Beers,
by those of my friends who happen to

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know that I sometimes amuse myself with
hypnotism, mind reading, and kindred phenomena.

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I am frequently asked if I have
a clear conception of the nature of

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whatever principle underlies them. To this
question, I always reply that I neither

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have nor desire to have. I
am no investigator with an ear at the

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keyhole of Nature's workshop, trying with
vulgar curiosity to steal the secrets of her

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trade. The interests of science are
as little to me as mine seem to

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have been to science. Doubtless,
the phenomena in question are simple enough and

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in no way transcend our powers of
comprehension. If only we could find the

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clue. But for my part,
I prefer not to find it, for

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I am of a singularly romantic disposition, deriving more gratification from mystery than from

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knowledge. It was commonly remarked of
me when I was a child that my

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big blue eyes appeared to have been
made rather to look into than look out

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of. Such was their dreamful duty, and in my frequent periods of abstraction,

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their indifference to what was going on
in those peculiarities they resembled. I

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venture to think the soul which lies
behind them, always more intent upon some

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lovely conception which it has created in
its own image, then concerned about the

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laws of nature and the material frame
of things. All this irrelevant and egotistic

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as it may seem, is related
by way of accounting for the meagerness of

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the light that I am able to
throw upon a subject that has engaged so

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much of my attention, and concerning
which there is so keen and general a

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curiosity. With my powers and opportunities, another person might doubtless have an explanation

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for much of what I present simply
as narrative. My first knowledge that I

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possessed unusual powers came to me in
my fourteenth year, when at school,

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happening one day to have forgotten to
bring my noonday luncheon, I gazed longingly

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at that of a small girl who
was preparing to eat hers. Looking up,

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her eyes met mine, and she
seemed unable to withdraw them. After

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a moment of hesitancy, she came
forward in an absent kind of way,

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and without a word, surrendered her
little basket with its tempting contents and walked

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away, inexpressibly pleased. I relieved
my hunger and destroyed the basket. After

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that I had not the trouble to
bring a luncheon for myself. That little

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girl was my daily purveyor, and
not infrequently, in satisfying my simple need

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from her frugal store, I combined
pleasure and profit by constraining her attendance at

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the feast and making misleading proffer of
the viands, which eventually I consumed to

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the last fragment. The girl was
always persuaded that she had eaten all herself,

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and later in the day her tearful
complaints of hunger surprised the teacher,

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entertained the pupils earned for her the
sobriquet of greedy gut, and filled me

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with a peace past understanding. A
disagreeable feature of this otherwise satisfactory condition of

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things was the necessary secrecy. The
transfer of the luncheon, for example,

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had to be made at some distance
from the matting crowd in a wood,

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and I blush to think of the
many other unworthy subterfuges entailed by the situation.

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As I was and am naturally of
a frank and open disposition. These

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became more and more irksome, and
but for the reluctance of my parents to

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renounce the obvious advantages of the new
regime, I would gladly have reverted to

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the old. The plan that I
finally adopted to free myself from the consequences

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of my own powers excited a wide
and keen interest at the time, and

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that part of it, which consisted
in the death of the girl, was

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severely condemned. But it is hardly
pertinent to the scope of this narrative.

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For some years afterward I had little
opportunity to practice hypnotism. Such small essays

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as I made at it were commonly
barren of other recognition than solitary confinement on

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a bread and water diet. Sometimes, indeed, they elicited nothing better than

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the Catanine tales. It was when
I was about to leave the scene of

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these small disappointments that my one really
important feat was performed. I had been

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called into the Warden's office and given
a suit of civilian's clothing, a trifling

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sum of money, and a great
deal of advice, which I am bound

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to confess was of a much better
quality than the clothing. As I was

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passing out of the gate into the
light of freedom. I suddenly turned,

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and, looking the warden gravely in
the eye, soon had him in control.

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You are an ostrich, I said. At the post mortem examination,

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the stomach was found to contain a
great quantity of indigestible articles, mostly of

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wood or metal, stuck fast in
the esophagus and constituting, according to the

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coroner's jury, the immediate cause of
death one door knob. I was by

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nature a good and affectionate son.
But as I took my way into the

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great world from which I had been
so long secluded, I could not help

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remembering that all my misfortunes had flowed
like a stream from the niggard economy of

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my parents in the matter of school
luncheons, and I knew of no reason

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to think they had reformed. On
the road between Succotash Hill and South Asphyxia

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is a little open field which once
contained a shanty known as Pete Gilstrap's Place,

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where that gentleman used to murder travelers
for a living. The death of

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mister Gilstrap and the diversion of nearly
all the travel to another road occurred,

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so nearly at the same time that
no one has ever been able to say

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which was cause and which effect.
Anyhow, the field was now a desolation,

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and the place had long been burned. It was while going afoot to

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South Asphyxia, the home of my
childhood, that I found both my parents

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on their way to the hill.
They had hitched their team and were eating

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luncheon under an oak tree in the
center of the field. The sight of

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the luncheon called up painful memories of
my school days and roused the sleeping lion

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in my breast. Approaching the guilty
couple, who at once recognized me,

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I ventured to suggest that I share
their hospitality. Of this cheer, my

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son, said, the author of
my being, with characteristic pomposity, which

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age had not withered. There is
sufficient for but two. I am not,

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I hope, insensible to the hunger
light in your eyes. But my

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father has never completed that sentence.
What he mistook for hunger light was simply

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the earnest gaze of the hypnotist.
In a few seconds he was at my

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service. A few more sufficed for
the lady, and the dictates of a

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just resentment could be carried into effect. My former father, I said,

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I presume that it is known to
you that you and this lady are no

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longer what you were. I have
observed a certain subtle change, was the

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rather dubious reply of the old gentleman. It is perhaps attributable to age.

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It is more than that, I
explained, it goes to character, to

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species. You and the lady here
are, in truth two bronchos, wild

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stallions, both and unfriendly. Why, John exclaimed, my dear mother,

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you don't mean to say that I
am madam, I replied, solemnly,

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fixing my eyes again upon hers.
You are scarcely had the words fallen from

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my lips. When she dropped upon
her hands and knees, and backing up

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to the old man, squealed like
a demon, and delivered a vicious kick

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upon his chin. An instant later, he was himself down on all fours,

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headed away from her, and flinging
his feet at her. Simultaneously and

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successively, with equal earnestness, but
inferior agility because of her hampering body gear,

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she plied her own. Their flying
legs crossed and mingled in the most

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bewildering way, their feet sometimes meeting
squarely in mid air. Their bodies thrust

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forward, falling flat upon the round, and for a moment helpless on recovering

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themselves, they would resume the combat, uttering their frenzy in the nameless sounds

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of the furious brutes, which they
believed themselves to be. The whole region

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rang with their clamor round and round
they wheeled, the blows of their feet

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falling like lightnings from the mountain cloud. They plunged and reared backward upon their

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knees, struck savagely at each other
with awkward, descending blows of both fists

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at once, and dropped again upon
their hands, as if unable to maintain

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the upright position of the body.
Grass and pebbles were torn from the soil

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by hands and feet, Clothing,
hair, faces inexpressibly defiled with dust and

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blood. Wild inarticulate screams of rage
attested the delivery of the blows, groans,

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grunts, and gasps their receipt.
Nothing more truly military was ever seen

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at Gettysburg or Waterloo. The valor
of my dear parents in the hour of

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danger can never cease to be to
me a source of pride and gratification.

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At the end of it all,
two battered, tattered, bloody, and

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fragmentary vestiges of mortality attested the solemn
fact that the author of the strife was

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an orphan arrested for provoking a breach
of the peace. I was, and

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have ever since been tried in the
court of Technicalities and Continuances. Whence,

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after fifteen years of proceedings, my
attorney is moving heaven and earth to get

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the case taken to the Court of
Remandment for new trials. Such are a

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few of my principal experiments in the
mysterious force or agency known as hypnotic suggestion.

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Whether or not it could be employed
by a bad man for an unworthy

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purpose, I am unable to say. End of the Hypnotist by Ambrose Bers