"I can't help that, sir," said the little professor, testily; "you
should have come before. But that is the way. Our science, which is
really the queen of sciences, is disregarded; only one here and there
comes to us, and then we are treated as no other scientific man would be
treated. Never mind, our day will come. One day all the sciences shall
bow the knee to us, for we are the real interpreters of the mysteries of
nature."
I apologized for my impatience, which he gravely accepted, and then woke
Simon from his sleep.
"Where am I?" cried Simon. "Where've I been?"
"I can't tell," said the professor; "I wish I could, for then our work
would be accomplished."
"Have you bin a-waccinatin' me?" said Simon.
The little man looked to me for explanation.
"He calls everything mysterious by that name," I said.
"'Cause," continued Simon, "I thought as how you waccinators, or
mesmerists, made passes, as they call 'em, and waved your hands about,
and like that."
"Did that Mr. Voltaire, I think you call him, make passes?" asked the
professor.
"He!" said Simon. "He ain't no ordinary man. He's got dealin's with old
Nick, he hev. He didn't come near me, nor touch me, and I wur sleepin'
afore I could think of my grandmother."
"Just so; he is no ordinary man. He's a real student of psychology, he
is. He has gone beyond the elements of our profession. I despise the
foolish things which these quacks of mesmerism make Billy people do in
order to please a gaping-mouthed audience. It is true I call myself a
professor of mesmerism and clairvoyance, but it would be more correct to
call me a practical psychologist. You'll attend to my wishes with
regard to our friend, won't you? Good-morning."
I will not try to describe how I passed the day. It would be wearisome
to the reader to tell him how often I looked at my watch and thought of
the precious hours that were flying; neither will I speak of my hopes
and fears with regard to this idea of finding Kaffar's whereabouts by
means of clairvoyance. Suffice it to say I was in a state of feverish
anxiety when we drove up to the professor's door that night, about
half-past nine.
We did not wait a minute before operations were commenced. Simon was
again in a mesmeric sleep, or whatever the reader may be pleased to call
it, in a few seconds after he had sat down.
Von Virchow began by asking the same question he had asked in the
morning: "Do you see Kaffar, the Egyptian?"
I waited in breathless silence for the answer. Simon heaved a deep sigh,
and peered wearily around, while the professor kept his eye steadily
upon him.
"Do you see Kaffar, the Egyptian?" repeated he.
"Yes, I see him," said Simon at length.
"Where?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out," said Simon. "The place is
strange; the people talk in a strange tongue. I can't make 'em out."
"What do you see now?" said the professor, touching his forehead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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