"Us!" Curtis e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"Yes! Us!" Hamar mimicked. "It contains full particulars of how we can get in touch with certain Occult Powers--that can give us money or anything else we want!"

"Rot, of course!" Curtis said.

"You say that now. But, listen to me," Hamar replied. "Since I've read that book, I believe there's a lot more in Occultism than people imagine. You may recollect the name of the author of the book--Thomas Maitland? Well! to begin with, he impresses me as being truthful; and he not only believed in Magic but he practised it. If he hadn't gone into details I shouldn't think anything of it, but he's so darned thorough, and tells you exactly what you've got to do to get in touch with the Occult Powers and to practise sorcery. He learned it all from that old MS. he found, written by an Atlantean; and the Atlanteans, he says, were adepts in every form of Occultism. I tell you, this chap himself scoffed at it at first; and it was more out of curiosity, he says, than because he was convinced, that he began to experiment. He afterwards came to the conclusion that the Atlanteans were no fools.

What they had written about the Occult was absolutely correct--there was another world, and it was possible to get in touch with it. Now, if Thomas Maitland was able to practise sorcery, why can't we? There was a gap of close on twenty thousand years between his time and that of Atlantis, and there's not much more than two hundred years between his day and ours. But, of course, if you're going to pooh-pooh the whole thing I won't trouble to tell you any more!"

"Well, Leon," Kelson e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "magic and sorcery do seem a trifle out of date, don't they? Could any one look out of the window at what is going on in the streets below, and at the same time believe in fairies and hobgoblins? Still the book made a bit of an impression on me, so that I'm inclined to agree with you. Anyway, go ahead! Ed is agreeable, aren't you, Ed?"

Curtis gave a sulky nod. "I'm not averse to anything that may put us in the way of a livelihood," he said.

Hamar, somewhat appeased, briefly informed them of the tests and other preliminaries necessary for the acquirement of the Black Art, and without more ado proposed that they--the three of them--should form a Syndicate and call it the Sorcery Company Limited. "To begin with," he said, "we might sell tricks and spells, and later on tackle something more subtle. Why, we could soon knock all the jugglers and doctors on the head--and make a huge fortune."

"That is to say if it isn't all humbug!" Curtis observed.

"Well--do you or don't you think it worth trying?" Hamar cut in. "You call me a Jew--but Jews, you know, have a tolerably cool head, and a keen faculty for business. They don't touch anything unless it is pretty certain to bring them in money. Will you try?"

"Y-e-s!" Curtis said slowly; "I'll try."

"And you, Matt?" Hamar queried. "We must have three."

"I don't mind trying," Kelson replied. "I expect it will be only a try."

"That settles it, then!" Hamar cried. "Now, we'll get to business. To begin with we're all wholly occupied with things of this world--money chiefly!"

"Sometimes music!" Curtis said sententiously.

"And sometimes girls," Kelson joined in. "Music's a pose on Ed's part.

I don't believe he really cares a bit for it. He's far too material."

"Just what I want him to be!" Hamar laughed. "Girls are material enough too--especially when you take them out to supper. Anyhow, money is our first consideration, isn't it?"

To this there was general a.s.sent.

"The preliminary requirement is fixed then," Hamar said. "Now for the week of wild oats! Lying, stealing, cheating--anything to counteract the code of Moses! Let's take them in turn. Lying won't trouble us much. Every one lies. Lying is the stock-in-trade of doctors, lawyers, sky pilots, storekeepers--"

"And dentists!" Curtis chimed in.

"And shop girls!" Kelson added.

"All women--rich as well as poor!" Hamar went on. "Lying is woman's birthright. She lies about her age, her looks, her clothes--everything.

With a lie she sends callers away, and when she is in the mood, entertains them with lies. Women are born liars, but they are not the only liars. In these days of keen compet.i.tion every one lies--every editor, publisher, undertaker, piano-tuner, dustman--they couldn't live if they didn't. Moreover lying is natural to us all. Every child lies as soon as it can speak; and education merely teaches him to lie the more effectually. Lying comes just as natural as sweating--"

"Or kissing," Kelson interrupted.

"Or any of the other so-called vices," Hamar continued. "So we can manage that all right. As to cheating--having nothing to cheat with--according to instructions we've got to keep in with each other, so present company is excepted--we must pa.s.s over that. Now--how about thieving!"

"Never done any yet, so can't say," Curtis exclaimed.

"Nor I either," Kelson put in rather hurriedly.

"Well, I didn't suppose you had!" Hamar laughed; "though, after all, more than half the world does thieve--all employers steal labour from their employes, all tradesmen steal a profit--the wholesale man from the middleman--the middleman from the retailer. Every Government thieves. Look at England--righteous England! At one time or another she has stolen land in every part of the world. But theft is an ugly word. When statesmen steal it's called diplomacy, when the rich steal it's called kleptomania or business, and it's only when the poor steal that stealing is termed theft. We who have every excuse--we who are starving--will be content with--that is to say--we will only take--just enough to keep us alive--a few lumps of sugar, a handful of raisins, or a loaf of bread. How about that?"

"I might manage that," Curtis said. "I might--but I don't want to get caught."

"And you, Matt?"

"I don't mind stealing food so much," Kelson said. "In the face of so much wealth--and waste too--it seems a bigger sin to starve than to steal a loaf of bread."

"The lying and stealing are fixed then," Hamar laughed. "What you have to do, too, is to make the most of every opportunity you can find of doing people--present company excepted--bad turns."

"I don't see how--in our present condition--we can do any one much harm," Curtis remarked. "We haven't even the means to buy a tin sword, let alone a bomb or pistol. If we wish them ill, perhaps, that will do instead."

"Possibly--but don't be such an a.s.s as to wish any one any good!"

Hamar said. "Do your best to carry out the injunctions I have given you, and we will meet here, this day week, to discuss the tests."

CHAPTER IV

THE TESTS

Seven days later, Hamar again knocked at Curtis's and Kelson's door and walked in. A faint sigh of relief escaped him.

"I see we are all right so far," he said. "I wondered whether I should find you both flown, or lying stretched in the icy hands of death.

Have you experimented?"

"We have," Curtis said. "We've done our best. In what way, we prefer not to say."

"Perhaps there is no need," Hamar replied, eyeing the mantelshelf which bore ample testimony to a full larder, and glancing at Curtis's feet which were encased in a pair of new and very shiny boots. (A handsome overcoat that was hanging on the door also attracted his attention; but that he had seen before, and concluded that it had been there on the occasion of his last visit.) "But you had better dry up now, Ed," he continued somewhat caustically, "or there'll be no chance of forming the Sorcery Society; it will be dissolved before it's started. There's no need to ask if you've tried to carry out instructions as to thoughts, I see it--in your faces. I could never have believed one experimental week in badness would have made such a difference to your looks."

"You told us to try hard!" Kelson murmured, "and naturally we did. I reckon you've done the same by your expression. I should hardly have known you."

"It shows pretty clearly," Curtis said, "what a lot of bad is latent in most people; and that the right circ.u.mstances only are needed to bring it out. Starvation, for instance, is calculated to bring out the evil in any one--no matter whom. But what puzzles me, is how we have escaped being caught!"

"That's a good sign," Hamar said. "It bears out what is written in the book. If you give your whole mind to doing wrong during this trial week you'll meet with no mishap. But you must be heart and soul in it.

Hunger made us--hunger has been our friend."

"What do you mean?" Curtis said.

"Why," Hamar replied, "if we hadn't been well-nigh starving we shouldn't have been able to carry out the instructions quite so thoroughly."

"Have you, too, stolen?" Curtis queried.

"I have certainly appropriated a few necessaries," Hamar said shortly, "but I mean to stop now. We have higher game to fly at. Now, with regard to the tests. I have not been idle I can a.s.sure you. I have secured all the requisites. The mirror and black cat I--well, er--to use a conventionalism that comes in rather handy--the mirror and cat--I picked up. The skull I borrowed from a medical I know--the moth--er--from some one's private collection--and the elderberries, hemlock and chemicals I obtained from a drug store man in Battery Street with whom I used to deal. The moon will be full to-night so that we may as well begin. Will you come round to my room at eleven-thirty?"