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supremely happy, at peace with myself and all the world, and all that I ask is to be let alone. But why is everything so magnificent here? Is it a whim of the proprietor, or an attempt to reproduce some such place in the East?’ I asked.
    ‘Possibly the latter; but there is another reason that you may understand better later. It is this: the color and peculiar phases of a hashish dream are materially affected by one’s surroundings just prior to the sleep. The impressions that we have been receiving ever since we entered, the lights, odors, sounds and colors, are the strands which the deft fingers of imagination will weave into the hemp reveries and dreams, which seem as real as those of everyday life, and always more grand. Hashish eaters and smokers in the East recognized this fact, and always, prior to indulging in the drug, surrounded themselves with the most pleasant sounds, faces, forms, etcetera.’
    ‘I see,’ I answered, dreamily. ‘But what is there behind those curtains that I see moving now and again?’ The heavy curtains just opposite where we lay seemed to shut in an alcove.
    ‘There are several small rooms there,’ said my companion, ‘shut off from this room by the curtains you see move. Each is magnificently fitted up, I am told. They are reserved for persons, chiefly ladies, who wish to avoid every possibility of detection, and at the same time enjoy their hashish and watch the inmates of this room.’
    ‘Are there many ladies of good social standing who come here?’
    ‘Very many. Not the cream of the demi-monde , understand me, but ladies . Why, there must be at least six hundred in this city alone who are habituées Smokers from different cities, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and especially New Orleans, tell me that each city has its hemp retreat, but none so elegant as this.’
    And my companion swallowed another lozenge and relapsed into dreamy silence. I too lay back listlessly, and was soon lost in reverie, intense and pleasant. Gradually the room and its inmates faded from view; the revolving dragons went swifter and more swiftly, until the flaming tongues and eyes were merged into a huge ball of flame, that, suddenly detaching itself with a sharp sound from its pivot, went whirling and streaming off into the air until lost to sight in the skies. Then a sudden silence, during which I heard the huge waves of an angry sea breaking with fierce monotony in my head. Then I heard the fountain; the musical tinkle of the spray as it struck upon the glass grew louder and louder, and the notes longer and longer, until they merged into one clear, musical bugle note that woke the echoes of a spring morning, and broke sharp and clear over hill and valley, meadowland and marsh, hilltop and forest. A gaily caparisoned horseman, bugle in hand, suddenly appeared above a hillcrest. Closely following, a straggling group of horsemen riding madly. Before them a pack of hounds came dashing down the hillside, baying deeply. Before them I, the fox, was running with the speed of desperation, straining every nerve to distance or elude them. Thus for miles and miles I ran on until at last, almost dead with fright and fatigue, I fell panting in the forest. A moment more and the cruel hounds would have had me, when suddenly a little field mouse appeared, caught me by the paw, and dragged me through the narrow entrance to her nest. My body lengthened and narrowed until I found myself a serpent, and in me rose the desire to devour my little preserver, when, as I was about to strike her with my fangs, she changed into a beautiful little fairy, tapped my ugly black flat head with her wand, and as my fangs fell to earth I resumed my human shape. With the parting words, ‘Never seek to injure those who endeavour to serve you,’ she disappeared.
    Looking about, I found myself in a huge cave, dark and noisome. Serpents hissed and glared at me from every side, and huge lizards and ugly shapes scrambled over the wet floor.