My horse and I get on admirably together: in the summer he sleeps in meadow or lane, on heath or common, while I sling my hammock in my roomy van; but in the winter I stable my steed at an inn, and, as for myself, laugh as I hear the snow-laden wind rasping vainly at the woodwork and windows of my domicile. I am snug and secure from any weather that may assail me; and with my pipe, my dog, and my books, am as comfortable and free as the Queen in her Castle at Windsor. But all this is not my very particular _hobby_; it is simply my mode of living, and a free, healthy, Bohemian life it is. As I have before remarked, I have a fondness for a good story; and I have a peculiar way of securing that article. I do not go to a book-shelf, get down a volume, and read a cut-and-dried version of some adventure or incident--frequently spoiled by the opinions of the writer, thrust willy-nilly upon the unfortunate reader--but I go straight to the fountain-head--to the hero or chief participator in the scenes and adventures described--and so get my story first-hand, _vivâ voce_, from the lips of the living narrator. In disclosing how I succeed in this I must first make a confession; then my _modus operandi_ will be at once plain. I am a hypnotist. Not a professional, séance-giving operator. I simply took the subject up as one would any other scientific pursuit, such as geology, botany, or electricity, and in a couple of years became remarkably expert in the fascinating diversion. I say _diversion_ purposely, as it _is_ my diversion, wherever I wander during my nomadic life. When a lad I read, and was enchanted with the wonderful stories of _The Thousand and One Tales, or Arabian Nights’ Entertainments_, and now that I have arrived at years of sober discretion, I look upon it as my undoubted right to have a story told to me by every person I may induce to share the hospitality of my caravan. The Sultan Schahriyar was told a thousand and one tales by his beautiful young bride Shahrazad, but as I have no beautiful young consort to spin me nightly yarns--which, coming from one brain, must necessarily have had a sameness--I have recourse to persons I meet in my peregrinations, who, after an enjoyable meal and a pipe, allow me, as a favour, to hypnotize them. The trance state having been induced in a very brief time, I then exert my will-force, and request my subject to tell me a story of anything remarkable that has happened in his experience, or with which he was connected. By this means I have listened to nearly as many recitals as Schahriyar himself; some good, some commonplace, some not worth listening to; while a few of them struck me as being very remarkable and quite out of the ordinary run of book stories. It is a selection from these which I have collected in this volume.