Part 52 (2/2)

”I'm so sorry for that sir. Please forgive me.”

Mr. Rolfe read the letter next in date--

”We are honored with one relic of antiquity, a Pythagorean. He has obliged me with his biography. He was, to use his own words, engendered by the sun s.h.i.+ning on a dunghill at his father's door,' and began his career as a flea; but his ident.i.ty was, somehow, s.h.i.+fted to a boy of nine years old. He has had a long spell of humanity, and awaits the great change--which is to turn him to a bee. It will not find him unprepared; he has long practiced humming, in antic.i.p.ation. A faithful friend, called Caffyn, used to visit him every week. Caffyn died last year, and the poor Pythagorean was very lonely and sad; but, two months ago, he detected his friend in the butcher's horse, and is more than consoled, for he says, Caffyn comes six times a week now, instead of once.'”

”Poor soul!” said Lady Ba.s.sett. ”What a strange world for him to be living in. It seems like a dream.”

”There is something stranger coming in this last letter.”

”I have at last found one madman allied to Genius. It has taken me a fortnight to master his delusion, and to write down the vocabulary he has invented to describe the strange monster of his imagination. All the words I write in italics are his own.

”Mr. Williams says that a machine has been constructed for malignant purposes, which machine is an _air-loom._ It rivals the human machine in this, that it can operate either on mind or matter. It was invented, and is worked, by a gang of villains superlatively skillful in _pneumatic chemistry, physiology, nervous influence, sympathy,_ and the _higher metaphysic,_ men far beyond the immature science of the present era, which, indeed, is a favorite subject of their ridicule.

”The gang are seven in number, but Williams has only seen the four highest: _Bill, the King,_ a master of the art of _magnetic impregnation; Jack, the schoolmaster,_ the short-hand writer of the gang; _Sir Archy,_ Chief Liar to the a.s.sociation; and the _glove-woman,_ so called from her always wearing cotton mittens. This personage has never been known to speak to any one.

”The materials used in the air-loom by these _pneumatic adepts_ are infinite; but princ.i.p.ally _effluvia of certain metals, poisons, soporific scents,_ etc.

”The princ.i.p.al effects are:

”1st. EVENT-WORKING.--This is done by _magnetic manipulation_ of kings, emperors, prime ministers, and others; so that, while the world is fearing and admiring them, they are, in reality, mere puppets played by the workers of the air-loom.

”2d. CUTTING SOUL FROM SENSE.--This is done _by diffusing the magnetic warp from the root of the nose under the base of the skull, till it forms a veil; so that the sentiments of the heart can have no communication with the operations of the intellect._

”3d. KITING.--As boys raise a kite in the air, so the air-loom can lift an idea into the brain, where it floats and undulates for hours together. The victim cannot get rid of an idea so insinuated.

”4th. LOBSTER-CRACKING.--An external pressure of the magnetic atmosphere surrounding the person a.s.sailed. Williams has been so operated on, and says he felt as if he was grasped by an enormous pair of nut-crackers with teeth, and subjected to a piercing pressure, which he still remembers with horror. Death sometimes results from Lobster-cracking.

”5th. LENGTHENING THE BRAIN.--_As the cylindrical mirror lengthens the countenance,_ so these a.s.sailants find means to _elon_gate the brain.

This distorts the ideas, and subjects the most serious are made silly and ridiculous.

”6th. THOUGHT-MAKING.--While one of these villains sucks at the brain of the a.s.sailed, and extracts his existing sentiments, another will press into the vacuum ideas very different from his real thoughts. Thus his mind is physically enslaved.”

Then Sir Charles goes on to say:

”Poor Mr. Williams seems to me an inventor wasted. I thought I would try and reason him out of his delusion. I asked if he had ever seen this gang and their machine.

”He said yes, they operated on him this morning. 'Then show them me,'

said I. 'Young man,' said he, satirically, 'do you think these a.s.sa.s.sins, and their diabolical machine, would be allowed to go on, if they could be laid hands on so easily? The gang are fertile in disguise; the machine operates at considerable distances.'

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