The story hunter

Most men have a hobby of some kind, and I am certainly no exception to the general rule. Some love boating; some painting; others carving, angling, walking, shooting, or one of a hundred other diversions. The hobbies of noted men would fill a goodly volume—thus Tosti is fond of upholstering; Gladstone of tree-felling; the Sultan of Turkey is an amateur carpenter; the Shah of Persia photographs everything he can aim his lens at; the late Lord R. Churchill collected the teeth of criminals; H.R.H. the Princess of Wales has a passion for specimens of lace; and so on.

Now I love none of these pursuits, but will confess at once that my delight is a good story; something out of the usual rut of everyday fiction; something fresh, stimulating, racy; and to gratify my hobby I have been for many years a most voluminous reader.

No scientific works for me, thank you; no dreary, three-volume, society novels; give me good, sterling works of fiction—neither namby-pamby on the one hand, nor revoltingly realistic on the other—but sound, entertaining, well-worked-out fiction.

Generally speaking, my experience of writers is disappointing. One soon finds out their style of working, and after reading a short way into a story, the dénouement can frequently be correctly conjectured. Some authors are aware of this, and purposely lead their readers upon a wrong scent quite up to the penultimate chapter, and then suddenly surprise them by reversing their preconceived idea of the final disposition of the characters represented. This is extremely puzzling to that section of lady readers who “just glance at the last chapter” before wading through the volume, and must be extremely tantalizing to them as well.

Now it so happens that I have little else to do in life but to obey my own sweet will; no wife have I, and but few relations, and as to them, I steadfastly believe there is a great deal of truth in the aphorism, “relatives are best apart.” So strongly am I convinced of this, that I foster a fondness for peregrinating, solitarily, over the length and breadth of England, and even for making occasional incursions into Scotland or Wales.

My income is small but ample—a cosy £500 a year—upon which I can manage in comfort, especially as I have adopted a novel system of living; novel, not because it has not been carried out to a certain extent before, but because I have made a permanent institution of it; I am a dweller in a caravan, not merely during the pleasant summer months, but à la gipsy, all the year round; and, what is more, I thoroughly enjoy my solitary life on wheels. I have no rates or taxes to pay, and if I have troublesome neighbours I move; in fact I am a progressive man, I am always on the move.

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.

I must point out that in giving publicity to these stories I do not betray any trust; as, apart from having the sanction of my guests, or, as some would term them, victims—I have so altered names, places, and dates as to make the individuality of the narrators quite secure from discovery and consequent annoyance.

It may be asked, “Why do you go to the trouble of hypnotizing your guests, when they would probably tell you a story without being placed under mesmeric control?”

Now I am quite aware that “The Ancient Mariner” “stopped one of three,” because the said one was unwilling, and therefore had to be fixed with his “glittering eye,” but my guests are willing ones. They would probably, out of courtesy to me, as host, tell me a story in a sociable manner enough, but then, would they tell me the whole truth? Would they not be liable to gloss over certain incidents, to suppress others, and to add (for the sake of embellishment) many little touches, which, however interesting and probable, might not be strictly veracious?

Probably they would; and loving as I do to hear a true story, I always prefer to hypnotize my guest, who then gives me the facts just as they come uppermost in his mind, and his narration is free from flourishes or any great amount of extraneous or interpolated matter.

I do not know that I have anything else of a personal nature to place before the reader, but will commence the first story after I have premised it by a few words upon the narrator.

Dr. Nosidy is what many persons would term “a genius deranged.” It must, however, be remembered, that frequently only a very thin partition divides the genius from the madman, and one can recall the names of many great geniuses, who in their day were looked upon rather as lunatics than as shining lights of the world. The Doctor, by his personal appearance and conversation, did not in the least impress me with the idea that he was suffering from any mental aberration, but I must admit his remarkable story gave me grounds for surmising, that he was either a man far in advance of the times, or else one who would, at no distant period, be likely to end his career under lock and key.

He was a small man with a bald head, round the circumference of which grew a fringe of curly grey hair. His eyes were dark and sparkling, his nose large and aquiline, and his mouth broad and thin, indicative of volubility and power, with perhaps some acerbity of temper.

When I explained to him my hypnotic powers he fell in with my humour at once, and in a few minutes, being placed in the trance state, commenced the following curious recital, which I will call “The Strange Discovery of Doctor Nosidy.”