"I am in your hands," I said; "I will obey you implicitly. I thank you, my deliverer; lead me back to surface earth and receive the gratitude of a despairing mortal." "This I will surely do," he said; "rest your case in my hands, do not concern yourself in the least about your future. Before acquiescing in your desire, however, I will explain part of the experiences through which you have recently passed. You have been in the control of an evil spirit, and have been deceived. The grotesque figures, the abnormal beings about you, exist only in your disordered imagination. They are not real. These persons are happy and free from care or pain. They live in bliss inexpressible. They have a life within a life, and the outward expression that you have perceived is as the uncouth hide and figure that incloses the calm, peaceful eye of a toad. Look at their eyes, not at their seemingly distorted forms." I turned to the throng and beheld a multitude of upturned faces mildly beaming upon me. As I glanced from eye to eye of each countenance, the repulsive figure disappeared from my view, and a sweet expression of innocence was all that was disclosed to me. I realized that I had judged by the outer garment. I had wronged these fellow-beings. A sense of remorse came over me, a desire to atone for my short-sightedness. "What can I offer as a retribution?" I asked. "I have injured these people." "Listen," was the reply. "These serene intelligences are happy. They are as a band of brothers. They seek to do you a kindness, to save you from disaster. One hour of experience such as they enjoy is worth a hundred years of the pleasures known to you. This delicious favor, an hour of bliss, they freely offer you, and after you have partaken of their exquisite joy, I will conduct you back to earth's surface whenever you desire to leave us." He emphasized the word, desire. "I am ready," I replied; "give me this promised delight." The genial allurer turned to the table rock behind us, and continued: "In these fungus bowls we foment the extract of life. The precious cordial is as a union of the quintessential spirits of joy, peace, tranquillity, happiness, and delight. Could man abstract from ecstasy the thing that underlies the sense that gives that word a meaning, his product would not approach the power of the potent liquids in these vessels." "Of what are they composed?" I asked. "Of derivatives of the rarest species of the fungus family," he answered. "They are made by formulae that are the result of thousands of years of experimentation. Come, let us not delay longer the hour of bliss."