Imagination, I straightway went into the Dining Hall; whereon I now perceived with no little Surprise that the great Fire was in fact blazing there, and this without a Possibility of Doubt; also that the Company were dressed with great elegance; moreover all else was as the Company had said.
"Punch"
The Moorish Hindoo now carried in a great Bowl of steaming Punch, to which we betook ourselves heartily, the while the Spinsters and some of the Gentlemen played a very pleasing Game of Blind Man's Buff; after that a Country Dance, in which we all joined; and then again to the Punch and mulled Ale, to which some of us applied ourselves with so great good Will that it was with no little Difficulty we compassed the arriving at the outer Door at some three of the Clock in the Morning.
But no sooner were we come into the Street, but Peter and I were as sober as any Judge; whereat I was overcome with a great Surprise and Marvelling what all this might mean; and Peter, who perceived what was exercising my Mind, made so knowing a Grimace upon me that I was but the more confounded.
"Made so knowing a grimace upon me."
"Now," says he, with a great Enjoyment of himself, "I will be solving you this Enigma that methinks sits too heavily on your Brain, You must know then, for the Truth's Sake, that you have had no delicate Meats, nor any Punch; but have indeed fared most wholesomely and economically upon plain Food, to the great sparing of your Digestion and the Avoidance of evil Humours; seeing all this Festivity has been but a Phantasy brought about by a new Science called Hypnotism. This Hindoo," he continued, "is none other than a most skilled and accomplished Juggler that came under our Notice by the means of a Narration in the Daily Paper: in the which it was set forth that a certain Traveller, having with him a Kodac, came haply upon a Hindoo Juggler that was engaged in causing a Tree to grow from Nothing under the Eyes of a Circle of Spectators; whereon the Traveller took the occasion to make a Photograph of the Scene, and was thereafter mightily astonished at finding that, for all the Photograph indeed reproduced the
