An Amateur Mesmerist.

Otago Witness, Issue 1866, 26 August 1887, Page 35

An Amateur Mesmerist.

At a small party one night last week a highly comic young man said, early in the evening, that he had a good idea for having some fun at the expense of a quiet and inoffensive guest who was expected later. " Tell you what we'll do," said he, bubbling over with mirth as he spoke ; " I'll mesmerise Jones, make him stand on his head, and think he's a teakettle, and so on. It'll be awf ully funny. I've been having a little experience in mesmerism lately, and I can do it easy."

They all said it would be a great joke, and funny, and so on ; and when, soon after the unsuspecting Jones arrived, they turned tlie conversation, as if accidently, on mesmerism, the unsuspecting Jones said he didn't think there was much in it.

" Oh, you don't eh ?" said the highly comic young man, who, for the purpose of argument, we shall call Smith ; " now, I've been experimenting a little in these things, and there's a good deal in it. Now, I think, I could mesmerise you if you'd let me try."

" Oh, dear Mr Jones," cried all the young ladies with one accord, " please do let him mesmerise you ; it will add so greatly to the pleasure of the evening." Mr Jones consented to be mesmerised if it would afford them any pleasure. Rather to his own surprise, and greatly to everyone else's, after a few passes Mr Smith saw his victim pass into the magnetic slumber, and then the fun began.

Poor Mr Jones was made to believe himself whatever his mesmeriser wished — at one time an eloquent preacher, at other times a profound surgeon ; again a sick patient, and anon an exquisita opera singer ; until everyone roared and laughed until his or her sides were sore, and one handsome, tender-hearted young girl said " It is a shame 1" " I think we've had about fun enough out of the poor fellow," said Smith, magnanimously ; " 'spose I take him out of his magnetic slumber ?"

" Now," said Smith, " observe that I will make a few passes in the reverse way, and thus relffne him from the controlling influence of uiy mind, and dispel the magnetic slumber in which he has been the unconscious agent to minister to our mirth and amusement."

So he made a few passes, but Jones did not come out of his trance ; on the contrary, he glared wildly round the room, ran his fingers through his hair, and, tearing off his coat, howled, " Give me another horse. Bind up my wounds. A horse ! A norse ! My kingdom for a horse," in the style of Mr Barry Sullivan, and with gestures and stamping appropriate to the brief impersonation of the terrible Duke of Glo'ster.

" Why, he thinks he's Henry Irving !" exclaimed everyone, and they looked in surprise at Smith, who, however, retained his presence of mind, and, though badly sursaid: —

"You see I stimulated his bumps of eloquence and causation, as I may say ; now, however, I will de-magneti6e him for good." So he made a few more passes, and Jones set off walking at a breakneck pace down the room.

Smith looked somewhat more serious, and everybody said, "Why, how singular !" Some of the guests remarked : —

" Smith, why don't you take him out of the magnetic slumber at once ? He'll upset the furniture."

"I will," exclaimed Smith, and made several more assorted passes, finally seizing Jones and shaking him violently, with the exclamation, "He 1 there ! I say, time's up. Wake up ! Be yourself ! Come out cf this trance ! "

Jones gazed at liim pleasantly for an instant, then a rapturous smile broke out upon nis countenance, and he eried —

" Hence, Achmet, draw thy scimitar and keep faithful watch at the outer gate of the Seraglio — the Garden of Delights — while the Sultan, the Magnificent, the Lord of the Earth, rejoices his heart in the smiles of his odalisques ! " Before they had any idea of his intention he hugged and kissed every pretty girl in the room, calling them all •'Fatima."

" Perhaps he's going mad," said somebody ; and the lady of the house, turning pale, exclaimed : "Mr Smith, 1 must insist that you restore that unhappy young man to his senses this moment."

" But," said Smith, who had burst into a profuse perspiration, " that's what I'm trying to do as hard as I can, but he won't come out of his trance. I must have forgotten something about the process." " Well, try and remember it,'' said the lady, 11 Or he may be a raving maniac, and his

blood — and ours, which is worse, and more' to the purpose— will be upon your head." Here Jones took up a tumbler of lemonade with much solemnity, and advancing across the room with a majestic step, halted 'before Smith, and poured the contents on his hpad. , Then, jelling "Hurry up another wheelbarrowful of them bricks !" he jerked Smith's legs from under him, and seizing him by the feet, ran him on his nose across the room like a barrow, and jambed his head against the opposite wall ; then, dropping the un-' lucky amateur mesmerist, he advanced with a stealthy step, and hissed in a bloodcurdling tone : —

" Give me the dagger, and I will these brawny hands of mine incarmine in the vilain's heart's blood ; send him down, down to the deepest depths, and join him there, my dreadful mission of vengeance being accomplished up to the handle."

At this the handsome, tender-hearted girl fainted, three got out of the loom, and the mistress of the house adjured Smith to run for a doctor and take the man out of his trance with a stomach pump, or an electric embrocation, or something before there had been done a deed of dreadful note.

Smith did not want to be told twice, but dashed out of the house like a runaway flash of lightning, not stopping to put on his hat or overcoat, and as he was going through the gate, run plump into a policeman.

" You scoundrel," cried the officer, as they rolled over each other, "surrender, or I'll knock your brains out," and he took hold of Smith with so determined a grip that he tore every button off his waistcoat.

"I was going for the doctor — there's a raging maniac in that house," gasped Smith ; "lemme go."

" Oh, that won't do," contemptuously replied the policeman, " what are telling me ? Come along into the house, and let's see how many spoons you have about you."

So he dragged his captive in, giving him a hearty shake at every third step.

As Smith oould not answer a word in his hurry, he was rather roughly treated, and his foot happening to slip, he fell with the corner of his eye against the policeman's baton, which completely bunged lip that organ. After a time, however, he was able to refer to the number of the house, and there they went— Smith sans collar, waistcoat, buttons-— sam everything except an eye which was as big as three.

When the front door was opened he found Jones seated, in his right mind, conversing on the weather. Explanations were made to the officer ; and then Smith borrowed a new collar and some pins, repaired his damages, and went home, after vainly endeavouring to impress upon the company that it was a putup job between him and Jones to contribute to the evening's amusement.

Jones is not looked upon at present as quite so green as they took him to be, and is decidedly the social lion of the neighbourhood.