“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.

“Oh, ah, I see now,” said Simon.  “It’s a railway station, and I see that ‘ere willain there, jest as cunnin’ as ever.  He’s a gettin’ in the train, he is.”

“Can you see the name of the station?”

“No, I can’t.  It’s a biggish place it is, and I can’t see no name.  Stay a minute, though.  I see now.”

“Well, what’s the name?”

“It’s a name as I never see or heard tell on before.  B-O-L-O—­ah, that’s it; BOLOGNA, that’s it.  It is a queer name though, ain’t it?”