"Two days later, I left India for England. A sudden departure, but I was on the eve of a great discovery. I gathered together all the treatises relating to mesmerism that I could find and shut myself up in the country to study them. By the time I had mastered them, I found I thoroughly understood the art and, returning to London, I began to practise on people whom I had engaged for the purpose. One evening I accidentally made a great discovery. I found that by concentrating my gaze at a certain angle on another I could control that person's will. To my joy I found it answered with greater ease on women, and I started experimenting right away. My first subject was Fanny at the 'Royal.' You know the snubby little minx she was. She had tried to snub me more than once in public, and I felt I owed her a grudge, so to her I went to pay it.
"I found her alone in the bar, and calling for a whiskey and soda, she served it out in her usual languid way that riled me. As she put out her hand to take my half-crown I seized it and looked her in the face hard. Her first impulse was to withdraw it in disgust, but gradually her face began to relax, and in two minutes we were talking together like the oldest friends."
"What did you will her to do?" asked Tommy, with interest.
"I willed her to think that she loved me. And I succeeded, for when her _fiancé_ came in, she gave me the preference of her company. I despised and detested them both, so, to rile him, I boldly invited her to go with me to the theatre that evening, and she could not refuse, for I willed her to come. Needless to say, I did not take her. Her intended married someone else; hence the first notch in my stick. The second was, as I said, the Colonel's daughter, now the Lieutenant's wife. I found out her address, and called when he was on duty. Though she gave me a chilly reception, I soon had her will under control, and I carried on in public with her for some days. On her husband's return, his kind friends told him all about it. He accused her; she retaliated. There was a row, and now he is in Africa, while she is living again with her father, fretting her heart out. I was overjoyed at this success, for it enabled me to put two notches on my stick and, as he is the only man represented, he ought to feel honoured. As for the others, they are of all classes; some married women; some Society ladies, who have displeased me at one time or another."