He asked first for two volunteers from the audience. After considerable shy shuffling of feet and chattering insistence on the part of their feminine escorts, two boys were shoved forward, down the aisle. Laughing, red with embarrassment, the clumsy young fishermen mounted the stage, then half numb with stage fright awaited the next move. A chorus of murmured advice came from the interested and neighborly audience. “Silence!” ordered the professor, with a flash of his Paris-black eyes. Then before the eyes of each volunteer he made passes with his hand, gave a low murmured command, and first one, then the other became glassy eyed and appeared to go into a waking sleep, there on the stage. The hall was intensely still, hardly a foot stirred or a skirt rustled. Cynthia choked in her handkerchief. “Oh, dear,” she thought. “I believe I’m going to sneeze, and how shall we ever get out of here!” But the scent on her handkerchief, though it nearly strangled her, did put a halt to the sneeze. “You are now asleep,” the Professor told his subjects. “You will do exactly as I say. Lie down and roll over.” The two young men lay down on the platform and rolled over. There was a murmur of awe from the onlookers. “Now this is a stairway and you are climbing up it,” continued the orders. “Now open this door,” where there was no door. “It is cold and windy out and the rain beats on your faces as you open it.” The two staggered back, arms over eyes as though they had indeed opened a real door on a blast of wind and rain. Cynthia was getting a little bored with this. It seemed so onesided, so unsporting. The audience tittered, but the boys were such simple country lads it seemed unfair they should be made a laughing stock like this. She didn’t like that oily little man with his velvet coat and his soiled hands. “I wish he’d stop,” she thought. The exhibition continued with various orders. The subjects were given water to taste, an empty glass to smell, but the Professor directed that they smell or taste whatever he dictated, and their faces amusingly registered disgust or delight or surprise. Yes, they were funny, but Cynthia felt uncomfortable and looked back over her shoulder toward the bolted door. She wished she hadn’t come. Only once did the little professor nearly lose his subjects. During a tense and silent moment the sheep in the yard uttered a prolonged “Ba-a-ah!” The audience giggled hysterically and one of the young men began to come to himself again, looked around in a bewildered fashion and walked to the edge of the platform. The Professor waved his hands, snapped his fingers. “Go, it is finished,” he commanded. The two subjects blinked awake. If they had been caught abroad in their nightshirts they could not have looked more red and sheepish.