Then began the descent. "Look at the brickwork the whole time, Seymour—and hold fast with your hands. Now give me your right foot: give me your right foot, do you hear? That’s it—now the left." Step by step, with Peter just below him, the aviator came down the chimney, and he was still thirty feet from the bottom when the onlookers saw him pause and pass a hand over his forehead. He gazed down at them, and on his face there was a look of dazed surprise—like a man waking from a dream. Then he swung himself rapidly down to the ground, where he stood facing Peter. "You’ve saved my life, old man," he said, a little breathlessly, with the wondering look still in his eyes. "I—don’t understand quite what happened. I seemed to go all queer—when I looked down." He laughed shakily. "Dashed funny thing—er—thanks, most awfully. Good Lord! What’s the matter, old boy?" He leant over Peter, who had pitched forward unconscious at his feet. "I think," remarked the Well-known Soldier to no one in particular, as they walked back, "that the less said about this little episode the better. It was a good deal too near a tragedy for my liking." "A most instructive case," murmured the Great Doctor, "showing, first of all, the wonderful power of self-hypnotism. I have heard of similar cases in those old-fashioned London houses, where the light in the hall has fascinated people leaning over the banisters two or three stories above it, and caused them to want to throw themselves over." "And what is your second observation?" murmured the Rising Barrister, who was always ready to learn. "The influence of mind over matter," returned the Doctor, briefly, "and the strain involved in the successful overcoming of intense fear. Young Benton has never, and will never, do a braver thing in his life than he did to-night." "Ah!" murmured the Celebrated Actor, running his hand through his hair. "What a situation! Magnificent! Superb! But, I fear, unstageable." They entered the drawing-room, to find the conversation being monopolized by a newcomer—a captain in the Coldstream. It was perhaps as well: the remainder of the party seemed singularly indisposed to talk. "Climbin’ chimneys? Might be in you flying wallahs’ line—but not old Peter. D’you remember, Peter, turnin’ pea-green that time we climbed half-way up Wipers Cathedral, before they flattened it?" The Guardsman laughed at the recollection. "No—swimming is his stunt," he continued to everyone at large. "How he ever had the nerve to go overboard—in the most appalling sea—and rescue that fellow, I dunno. It was a great effort that, Peter." But the only answer was the door closing. "A good swimmer, is he?" remarked the Great Doctor, casually. "Wonderful," answered the other. "The rougher it is the more he likes it. He got the Royal Humane Society’s medal, you know, for that thing I was talking about. Leave-boat—off Boulogne."