In the evening, dinner being over, my friend signified his readiness to commence, by making idiotic passes at the portraits hanging round the room, and appeared to imagine that to hypnotize him was a thing not to be accomplished, at least not by _my_ humble powers. So certain was he that I should fail, that he was willing to do anything but give up his will to me. He made fun of my idea of obtaining a story from him, even if I _could_ put him to “bye-bye,” as he expressed it; and if I did make him ass enough to divulge anything like a story, I should tell it when or where I liked, or even publish it for the delectation of the public; but, as he assured me he did not know a story, he could not see how I was going to make him tell one. All being ready, we commenced our little _séance_, and in two minutes my victim was in a trance state. In spite of his bumptiousness and disbelief in my powers, and in hypnotism generally, he related the following very curious experience in his own career. THE MONK’S PENANCE. The profession of glass-painting is not exactly a precarious one, but, unlike many others, it has neither season nor certainty with it. People do not usually die to order, consequently, as Death hurls his dart at irregular intervals, a glass-painter is at one time quite idle, while at other periods, when he least expects it, the commissions roll in “thick and threefold.” He cannot spread his work out over the year as a mother applies jam to the bread of her eager-mouthed offspring; but when certain work has to be done, the painter has to stick to his task early and late, or the glass would stand in danger of becoming “ancient” before it could be inserted in the church for which it is intended. Very well; just at the time the curious incident happened which I will endeavour to relate, I was busy, very busy, and working in my studio from nine in the morning till nearly midnight. I was restoring a large window--the east window of H---- Church, Yorkshire--and had been requested to have it finished and fixed again for the re-opening ceremony on Christmas Day. It was a late fourteenth-century window, of rare beauty both in colour and workmanship, and contained many quaintly-drawn figures of saints and martyrs of all ages. Among them was one figure on which a greater amount of care had evidently been bestowed than upon any of the others, especially in regard to the painting of the face, which was probably a portrait. The figure to which I wish to draw attention was that of a Dominican friar, habited in the garb of his order, black and white in colour, which made a fine contrast to the ruby background on which the monk was placed in the window.