"The other evening I transformed my artist into President Cleveland. He assumed the character with quiet dignity, but said he had had a hard day's work and was tired.
"'Queen Victoria will visit you this evening, you know,' I said.
"'No!' he exclaimed with surprise. 'I didn't know she was in this country. When did she come?'
"'Yesterday, on the Aurania; here she comes, now.'
"He straightened up as I spoke and received her imaginary Majesty with real dignity and tact. After bowing and shaking hands he said:
"'I have heard with unfeigned pleasure of your Majesty's approach to the capital of the republic, and it is my agreeable privilege to extend to you the freedom of this city and country in behalf of sixty millions of people. Dan, get the lady a chair!'
"As she seemed to seat herself he listened a moment, smiled and said: 'I reciprocate those feelings, as do all Americans, and I trust that the amicable relations so long preserved between this republic and the mighty realm of which you are the honored and beloved ruler may never be broken.'
"'Where can the lady hang her crown?' I asked him. 'It must have a peck of diamonds in it. Can't I take it?'
"He looked scornfully at me and I added: 'Can't the boys manage to get it away from her Majesty when she goes down stairs?'
"'You are a disgrace to this administration, Dan, and have got to be fired out!' the President exclaimed angrily to me, and then he humbly apologized to the Queen.
"He casually added that the fisheries dispute might lead to trouble, and she would be prudent to let our boys get bait along shore where it seemed handiest.
"I know of no other thing in which there is so much entertainment as mesmerism. For the benefit of those who desire to experiment I append certain conclusions from my own experiments here:
"1. About one person in ten can be mesmerized.
"2. The proportion of people who have the 'power' to mesmerize, if it be a power, I do not know.
"3. Mesmerism is a trance and seems to me almost identical with somnambulism.
"4. It is as harmless as sleep. My sensitives occasionally come to me in the daytime to be put to sleep for the purpose of obtaining rest.
"5. Hallucinations that take place under mesmerism are seldom remembered in a subsequent waking state, but are generally recalled with vividness in a subsequent mesmeric state.