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A Victim of Higher Space ...................................................................................................................................1

Algernon Blackwood...............................................................................................................................1

"Why 'extraordinary'?" asked Dr. Silence, drawing the tips of his thin fingers through his brown beard. His

eyes twinkled pleasantly. "Why 'extraordinary,' Barker?" he repeated encouragingly, noticing the perplexed

"He's soso thin, sir. I could hardly see 'im at allat first. He was inside the house before I could ask the

"He come alone, sir, in a closed cab. He pushed by me before I could say a wordmaking no noise not what

The man stopped short with obvious embarrassment, as though he had already said enough to jeopardise his

new situation, but trying hard to show that he remembered the instructions and warnings he had received with

"And where is the gentleman now?" asked Dr. Silence, turning away to conceal his amusement.

The doctor looked up sharply. "But why in the hall, Barker? Why not in the waitingroom?" He fixed his

piercing though kindly eyes on the man's face. "Did he frighten you?" he asked quickly.

"I think he did, sir, if I may say so. I seemed to lose sight of him, as it were" The man stammered,

evidently convinced by now that he had earned his dismissal. "He come in so funny, just like a cold wind," he

added boldly, setting his heels at attention and looking his master full in the face.

The doctor made an internal note of the man's halting description; he was pleased that the slight evidence of

intuition which had induced him to engage Barker had not entirely failed at the first trial. Dr. Silence sought

for this qualification in all his assistants, from secretary to servingman, and if it surrounded him with a

somewhat singular crew, the drawbacks were more than compensated for on the whole by their occasional

"And he brings no kind of introduction to meno letter or anything?" asked the doctor, with feigned

"I beg pardon, sir," he said, greatly flustered; "the gentleman handed me this for you."

It was a note from a discerning friend, who had never yet sent him a case that was not vitally interesting from

"Please see the bearer of this note," the brief message ran, "though I doubt if even you can do much to help

John Silence paused a moment, so as to gather from the mind of the writer all that lay behind the brief words

of the letter. Then he looked up at his servant with a graver expression than he had yet worn.

"Go back and find this gentleman," he said, "and show him into the green study. Do not reply to his question,

or speak more than actually necessary; but think kind, helpful, sympathetic thoughts as strongly as you can,

Barker. You remember what I told you about the importance of thinking, when I engaged you. Put curiosity

out of your mind, and think gently, sympathetically, affectionately, if you can."

He smiled, and Barker, who had recovered his composure in the doctor's presence, bowed silently and went

There were two different reception rooms in Dr. Silence's house. One, intended for persons who imagined

they needed spiritual assistance when really they were only candidates for the asylum, had padded walls, and

was well supplied with various concealed contrivances by means of which sudden violence could be instantly

met and overcome. It was, however, rarely used. The other, intended for the reception of genuine cases of

spiritual distress and outoftheway afflictions of a psychic nature, was entirely draped and furnished in a

soothing deep green, calculated to induce calmness and repose of mind. And this room was the one in which

Dr. Silence interviewed the majority of his "queer" cases, and the one into which he had directed Barker to

To begin with, the armchair in which the patient was always directed to sit, was nailed to the floor, since its

immovability tended to impart this same excellent characteristic to the occupant. Patients invariably grew

excited when talking about themselves, and their excitement tended to confuse their thoughts and to

exaggerate their language. The immobility of the chair helped to counteract this. After repeated endeavours to

drag it forward, or push it back, they ended by resigning themselves to sitting quietly. And with the futility of

Upon the floor, and at intervals in the wall immediately behind, were certain tiny green buttons, practically

unnoticeable, which on being pressed permitted a soothing and persuasive narcotic to rise invisibly about the

occupant of the chair. The effect upon the excitable patient was rapid, admirable, and harmless. The green

study was further provided with a secret spyhole; for John Silence liked when possible to observe his

patient's face before it had assumed that mask the features of the human countenance invariably wear in the

presence of another person. A man sitting alone wears a psychic expression; and this expression is the man

himself. It disappears the moment another person joins him. And Dr. Silence often learned more from a few

moments' secret observation of a face than from hours of conversation with its owner afterwards.

A very light, almost a dancing step followed Barker's heavy tread towards the green room, and a moment

afterwards the man came in and announced that the gentleman was waiting. He was still pale and his manner

"Never mind, Barker," the doctor said kindly; "if you were not intuitive the man would have had no effect

upon you at all. You only need training and development. And when you have learned to interpret these

feelings and sensations better, you will feel no fear, but only a great sympathy."

"Yes, sir; thank you sir!" And Barker bowed and made his escape, while Dr. Silence, an amused smile

lurking about the corners of his mouth, made his way noiselessly down the passage and put his eye to the

This spyhole was so placed that it commanded a view of almost the entire room, and, looking through it, the

doctor saw a hat, gloves, and umbrella lying on a chair by the table, but searched at first in vain for their

The windows were both closed and a brisk fire burned in the grate. There were various signssigns

intelligible at least to a keenly intuitive soulthat the room was occupied, yet so far as human beings were

concerned, it seemed undeniably empty. No one sat in the chairs; no one stood on the mat before the fire;

there was no sign even that a patient was anywhere close against the wall, examining the Bšcklin

reproductionas patients so often did when they thought they were aloneand therefore rather difficult to

see from the spyhole. Ordinarily speaking, there was no one in the room. It was unoccupied.

Yet Dr. Silence was quite well aware that a human being was in the room. His sensitive system never failed

to let him know the proximity of an incarnate or discarnate being. Even in the dark he could tall that. And he

now knew positively that his patient, the patient who had alarmed Barker, and had then tripped down the

corridor with that dancing footstepwas somewhere concealed within the four walls commanded by his

spyhole. He also realisedand this was most unusualthat this individual whom he desired to watch knew

that he was being watched. And, further, that the stranger himself was also watching in his turn. In fact, that it

was he, the doctor, who was being observedand by an observer as keen and trained as himself.

An inkling of the true state of the case began to dawn upon him, and he was on the verge of

enteringindeed, his hand already touched the doorknobwhen his eye, still glued to the spyhole,

detected a slight movement. Directly opposite, between him and the fireplace, something stirred. He watched

very attentively and made certain that he was not mistaken. An object on the mantelpieceit was a blue

from view. It passed out of sight together with the portion of the marble mantelpiece on which it rested. Next,

that part of the fire and grate and brass fender immediately below, it vanished entirely, as though a slice had

Dr. Silence then understood that something between him and these objects was slowly coming into being,

something that concealed them and obstructed his vision by inserting itself in the line of sight between them

First he saw a thin, perpendicular line tracing itself from just above the height of the clock and continuing

downwards till it reached the woolly firemat. This line grew wider, broadened, grew solid. It was no

shadow; it was something substantial. It defined itself more and more. Then suddenly, at the top of the line,

and about on a level with the face of the clock, he saw a small luminous disc gazing steadily at him. It was a

human eye, looking straight into his own, pressed there against the spyhole. And it was bright with

Then, like someone moving out of deep shadow into light, he saw the figure of a man come sliding sideways

into view, a whitish face following the eye, and the perpendicular line he had first observed broadening out

and developing into the complete figure of a human being. It was the patient. He had apparently been

standing there in front of the fire all the time. A second eye had followed the first, and both of them stared

steadily at the spyhole, sharply concentrated, yet with a sly twinkle of humour and amusement that made it

He opened the door and went in quickly. As he did so he noticed for the first time the sound of a German

band coming in noisily through the open ventilators. In some intuitive, unaccountable fashion the music

connected itself with the patient he was about to interview. This sort of prevision was not unfamiliar to him.

The man, he saw, was of middle age and of very ordinary appearance; so ordinary, in fact, that he was

difficult to describehis only peculiarity being his extreme thinness. Pleasantthat is, goodvibrations

issued from his atmosphere and met Dr. Silence as he advanced to greet him, yet vibrations alive with

currents and discharges betraying the perturbed and disordered condition of his mind and brain. There was

evidently something wholly out of the usual in the state of his thoughts. Yet, though strange, it was not

altogether distressing; it was not the impression that the broken and violent atmosphere of the insane

produces upon the mind. Dr. Silence realised in a flash that here was a case of absorbing interest that might

"I was watching you through my little peepholeas you saw," he began, with a pleasant smile, advancing

But the patient interrupted him at once. His voice was hurried and had odd, shrill changes in it, breaking from

high to low in unexpected fashion. One moment it thundered, the next it almost squeaked.

"I understand without explanation," he broke in rapidly. "You get the true note of a man in that waywhen

he thinks himself unobserved. I quite agree. Only, in my case, I fear, you saw very little. My case, as you of

course grasp, Dr. Silence, is extremely peculiar, uncomfortably peculiar. Indeed, unless Sir William had

"My friend has sent you to me," the doctor interrupted gravely, with a gentle note of authority, "and that is

"Take this comfortable one, Mr. Mudge," leading him to the fixed chair, "and tell me your condition in your

own way and at your own pace. My whole day is at your service if you require it."

"You will promise me not to use the narcotic buttons," he said, before sitting down. "I do not need them. Also

I ought to mention that anything you think of vividly will reach my mind. That is apparently part of my

peculiar case." He sat down with a sigh and arranged his thin legs and body into a position of comfort.

Evidently he was very sensitive to the thoughts of others, for the picture of the green buttons had only entered

the doctor's mind for a second, yet the other had instantly snapped it up. Dr. Silence noticed, too that Mr.

"I'm rather glad the chair is nailed to the floor," he remarked, as he settled himself more comfortably. "It suits

me admirably. The fact isand this is my case in a nutshellwhich is all that a doctor of your marvellous

development requiresthe fact is, Dr. Silence, I am a victim of Higher Space. That's what"s the matter with

The two looked at each other for a space in silence, the little patient holding tightly to the arms of the chair

which "suited him admirably", and looking up with staring eyes, his atmosphere positively trembling with the

waves of some unknown activity; while the doctor smiled kindly and sympathetically, and put his whole

"Higher Space," repeated Mr. Mudge, "that's what it is. Now, do you think you can help me with that?"

There was a pause during which the men's eyes steadily searched down below the surface of their respective

"I am quite sure I can help," he answered quietly; "sympathy must always help, and suffering always claims

my sympathy. I see you have suffered cruelly. You must tell me all about your case, and when I hear the

gradual steps by which you reached this strange condition, I have no doubt I can be of assistance to you."

He drew a chair up beside his interlocutor and laid a hand on his shoulder for a moment. His whole being

"For instance," he went on, "I feel sure it was the result of no mere chance that you became familiar with the

terrors of what you term Higher Space; for higher space is no mere external measurement. It is, of course, a

spiritual state, a spiritual condition, an inner development, and one that we must recognise as abnormal, since

it is beyond the reach of the senses at the present stage of evolution. Higher Space is a mystical state."

"Oh!" cried the other, rubbing his birdlike hands with pleasure, "the relief it is to me to talk to someone who

can understand! Of course what you say is the utter truth. And you are right that no mere chance led me to my

present condition, but, on the other hand, prolonged and deliberate study. Yet chance in a sense now governs

it. I mean, my entering the condition of higher space seems to depend upon the chance of this and that

circumstance." He sighed and paused a moment. "For instance," he continued, starting, "the mere sound of

that German band sent me off. Not that all music will do so, but certain sounds, certain vibrations, at once

key me up to the requisite pitch, and off I go. Wagner's music always does it, and that band must have been

playing a stray bit of Wagner. But I'll come to all that later. Only, first"he smiled deprecating]y"I must

John Silence looked up with a start, for Mr. Mudge's back was to the door, and there was no mirror. He saw

the brown eye of Barker glued to the little circle of glass, and he crossed the room without a word and

snapped down the black shutter provided for the purpose, and then heard Barker shuffle away along the

"Now," continued the little man in the chair, "I can go on. You have managed to put me completely at my

ease, and I feel I may tell you my whole case without shame or reserve. You will understand. But you must

be patient with me if I go into details that are already familiar to youdetails of higher space, I meanand

if I seem stupid when I have to describe things that transcend the power of language and are really therefore

"My dear friend," put in the other calmly, "that goes without saying. To know higher space is an experience

that defies description, and one is obliged to make use of more or less intelligible symbols. But, pray,

An immense sigh of relief proceeded from the little figure half lost in the depths of the chair. Such intelligent

sympathy meeting him halfway was a new experience, and it touched his heart at once. He leaned back,

"My mother was a Frenchwoman, and my father an Essex bargeman," he said abruptly. "Hence my

nameRacine and Mudge. My father died before I ever saw him. My mother inherited money from her

Bordeaux relations, and when she died soon after, I was left alone with wealth and a strange freedom. I had

no guardian, trustees, sisters, brothers, or any connection in the world to look after me. I grew up, therefore,

utterly without education. This much was to my advantage; I learned none of that deceitful rubbish taught in

schools, and so had nothing to unlearn when I awakened to my true lovemathematics, higher mathematics

and higher geometry. These, however, I seemed to know instinctively. It was like the memory of what I had

deeply studied before; the principles were in my blood, and I simply raced through the ordinary stages, and

beyond, and then did the same with geometry. Afterwards, when I read the books on these subjects, I

understood how swift and undeviating the knowledge had come back to me. It was simply memory. It was

simply recollecting the memories of what I had known before in a previous existence and required no books

In his growing excitement, Mr. Mudge attempted to drag the chair forward a little nearer to his listener, and

then smiled faintly as he resigned himself instantly again to its immobility, and plunged anew into the recital

"The audacious speculations of Bolyai, the amazing theories of Gaussthat through a point more than one

line could be drawn parallel to a given line; the possibility that the angles of a triangle are together greater

than two right angles, if drawn upon immense curvaturesthe breathless intuitions of Beltrami and

Lobatchewskyall these I hurried through, and emerged, panting but unsatisfied, upon the verge of

"How I got there," he resumed after a brief pause, during which he appeared to be listening nervously for an

approaching sound, "is more than I can put intelligibly into words. I can only hope to leave your mind with an

"Here, however, came a change. At this point I was no longer absorbing the fruits of studies I had made

before; it was the beginning of new efforts to learn for the first time, and I had to go slowly and laboriously

through terrible work. Here I sought for the theories and speculations of others. But books were few and far

between, and with the exception of one mana 'dreamer,' the world called himwhose audacity and

piercing intuition amazed and delighted me beyond description, I found no one to guide or help.

"You, of course, Dr. Silence, understand something of what I am driving at with these stammering words,

though you cannot perhaps yet guess what depths of pain my new knowledge brought me to, nor why an

acquaintance with a new dimension of space should prove a source of misery and terror."

Mr. Racine Mudge, remembering that the chair would not move, did the next best thing he could in his desire

to draw nearer to the attentive man facing him, and sat forward upon the very edge of the cushions, crossing

his legs and gesticulating with both hands as though he saw into this region of new space he was attempting

to describe, and might any moment tumble into it bodily from the edge of the chair and disappear from view.

John Silence, separated from him by three aces, sat with his eyes fixed upon the thin white face opposite,

"This room we now sit in, Dr. Silence, has one side open to spaceto higher space. A closed box only seems

"Hence, if higher space exists and our world borders upon it and lies partially in it, if follows necessarily that

we see only portions of all objects. We never see their true and complete shape. We see three measurements,

but not their fourth. The new direction is concealed from us, and when I hold this book and move my hand all

round it I have not really made a complete circuit. We only perceive those portions of any object which exist

in our three dimensions, the rest escapes us. But, once learn to see in higher space, and objects will appear as

"I am beginning to understand something of what you must have suffered," observed the doctor soothingly,

"You are the one man in all the world who can understand, and sympathise," exclaimed Mr. Mudge, grasping

his hand and holding it tightly while he spoke. The nailed chair prevented further excitability.

"Well," he resumed, after a moments' pause, "I procured the implements and the coloured blocks for practical

experiment, and I followed the instructions carefully till I had arrived at an imaginative conception of four

dimensional space. The tessaract, the figure whose boundaries are cubes, I knew by heart. That is to say, I

knew it and saw it mentally, for my eye, of course, could never take in a new measurement, nor my hands and

"So, at least, I thought," he added, making a wry face. "I had reached the stage, you see, when I could

imagine in a new dimension. I was able to conceive the shape of that new figure which is intrinsically

different to all we knowthe shape of the tessaract. I could perceive in four dimensions. When, therefore, I

looked at a cube I could see all its sides at once. Its top was not foreshortened, nor its farther side and base

invisible. I saw the whole thing out flat, so to speak. Moreover, I also saw its contentits insides."

"Not then. I was only able to conceive intuitively what it was like and how exactly it must look. Later, when I

slipped in there and saw objects in their entirety, unlimited by the paucity of our poor three measurements, I

very nearly lost my life. For, you see, space does not stop at a single new dimension, a fourth. It extends in all

possible new ones, and we must conceive it as containing any number of new dimensions. In other words,

there is no space at all, but only a condition. But, meanwhile, I had come to grasp the strange fact that the

Mr. Mudge moved farther forward till he was balanced dangerously on the very edge of the chair. "From this

starting point," he resumed, "I began my studies and experiments, and continued them for years. I had money,

and I was without friends. I lived in solitude and experimented. My intellect, of course, had little part in the

work, for intellectually it was all unthinkable. Never was the limitation of mere reason more plainly

demonstrated. It was mystically, intuitively, spiritually that I began to advance. And what I learnt, and knew,

and did is all impossible to put into language, since it describes experiences transcending the experiences of

men. It is only some of the resultswhat you would call the symptoms of my diseasethat I can give you,

and even these must often appear absurd contradictions and impossible paradoxes.

"I can only tell you, Dr. Silence"his manner became grave suddenly"that I reached sometimes a point of

view whence all the great puzzles of the world became plain to me, and I understood what they call in the

Yoga books 'The Great Heresy of Separateness'; why all great teachers have urged the necessity of man

loving his neighbour as himself; how men are all really one; and why the utter loss of self is necessary to

"Your speculations have been my own long ago," the doctor said quietly. "I fully realise the force of your

"All this about the very much higher space I only dimly, very dimly conceived, of course," the other went on,

raising his voice again by jerks; "but what did happen to me was the humbler accident ofthe simpler

"It was simply this," he resumed with a sudden rush of words, "that, accidentally, as the result of my years of

experiment, I one day slipped bodily into the next world, the world of four dimensions, yet without knowing

precisely how I got there, or how I could get back again. I discovered, that is, that my ordinary

threedimensional body was but an expressiona partial projectionof my higher fourdimensional body!

"Now you understand what I meant much earlier in our talk when I spoke of chance. I cannot control my

entrance or exit. Certain people, certain human atmospheres, certain wandering forces, thoughts, desires

eventhe radiations of certain combinations of colour, and above all, the vibrations of certain kinds of

music, will suddenly throw me into a state of what I can only describe as an intense and terrific inner

vibrationand behold I am off! Off in the direction at right angles to all our known directions! Off in the

direction the cube takes when it begins to trace the outlines of the new figure, the tessaract! Off into my

breathless and semidivine higher space! Off, inside myself, into the world of four dimensions!"

"And there," he whispered, his voice issuing from among the cushions, "there I have to stay until these

vibrations subside, or until they do something which I cannot find words to describe properly or intelligibly

to youand then, behold, I am back again. First, that is, I disappear. Then I reappear. Only,"he

"Why a few moments ago," interrupted Mr. Mudge, taking the words out of his mouth, "you found me gone,

and then saw me return. The music of that wretched German band sent me off. Your intense thinking about

me brought me backwhen the band had stopped its Wagner. I saw you approach the peephole and I saw

Barker's intention of doing so later. For me no interiors are hidden. I see inside. When in that state the content

of your mind, as of your body, is open to me as the day. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!"

Mr. Mudge stopped and mopped his brow. A light trembling ran over the surface of his small body like wind

"At first," he presently resumed, "my new experiences were so vividly interesting that I felt no alarm. There

"Then you actually penetrated far enough into that state to experience yourself as a normal portion of it?"

"I did," he whispered, "undoubtedly I did. I am coming to all that. It began first at night, when I realised that

"The spirit, of course, can never sleep. Only the body becomes unconscious," interposed John Silence.

"Yes, we know thattheoretically. At night, of course, the spirit is active elsewhere, and we have no

memory of where and how, simply because the brain stays behind and receives no record. But I found the,

while remaining conscious, I also retained memory. I had attained to the state of continuous consciousness,

for at night regularly, with the first approaches of drowsiness, I entered nolens volens the four dimensional

"For a time this happened frequently, and I could not control it; though later I found a way to regulate it

better. Apparently sleep is unnecessary in the higherthe four dimensionalbody. Yes, perhaps. But I

should infinitely have preferred dull sleep to the knowledge. For, unable to control my movements, I

wandered to and fro, attracted owing to my partial development and premature arrival, to parts of this new

world that alarmed me more and more. It was the awful waste and drift of a monstrous world, so utterly

different to all we know and see that I cannot even hint at the nature of the sights and objects and beings in it.

More than that, I cannot even remember them. I cannot now picture them to myself even, but can recall only

the memory of the impression they made upon me, the horror and devastating terror of it all. To be in several

"Perfectly," interrupted John Silence, noticing the increase of the other's excitement, "I understand exactly.

But now, please, tell me a little more of this alarm you experienced, and how it affected you."

"It's not the disappearing and reappearing per se that I mind," continued Mr. Mudge, "so much as certain

other things. It's seeing people and objects in their weird entirety, in their true and complete shapes, that is so

distressing. It introduced me to a world of monsters. Horses, dogs, cats, all of which I loved; people, trees,

children; all that I have considered beautiful in lifeeverything, from a human face to a cathedralappear

to me in a different shape and aspect to all I have known before. Instead of seeing their partial expression in

three dimensions, I saw them completein four. I cannot perhaps convince you why this should be terrible,

but I assure you that it is so. To hear the human voice proceeding from this novel appearance which I scarcely

recognise as a human body is ghastly, simply ghastly. To see inside everything and everybody is a form of

insight peculiarly distressing. To be so confused in geography as to find myself one moment at the North

Pole, and the next at Clapham Junctionor possibly at both places simultaneouslyis absurdly terrifying.

Your imagination will readily furnish other details without my multiplying my experiences now. But you

Mr. Mudge paused in his panting account and lay back in his chair. He still held tightly to the arms as though

they could keep him in the world of sanity and three measurements, and only now and again released his left

hand in order to mop his face. He looked very thin and white and oddly unsubstantial, and he stared about

John Silence, too, felt warm. He had listened to every word and had made many notes. The presence of this

man had an exhilarating effect upon him. It seemed as if Mr. Racine Mudge still carried about with him

something of that breathless higherspace condition he had been describing. At any rate, Dr. Silence had

himself advanced sufficiently far to realise that the visions of this extraordinary little person had a basis of

After a pause that prolonged itself into minutes, he crossed the room and unlocked a drawer in a bookcase,

taking out a small book with a red cover. It had a lock to it, and he produced a key out of his pocket and

proceeded to open the covers. The bright eyes of Mr. Mudge never left him for a single second.

"It almost seems a pity," he said at length, "to cure you, Mr. Mudge. You are on the way to discovery of great

things. Though you may lose your life in the processthat is, your life here in the world of three

dimensionsyou would lose thereby nothing of great valueyou will pardon my apparent rudeness, I

knowand you might gain what is infinitely greater. Your suffering, of course, lies in the fact that you

alternate between the two worlds and are never wholly in one or the other. Also, I rather imagine, though I

cannot be certain of this from any personal experiments, that you have here and there penetrated even into

space of more than four dimensions, and have hence experienced the terror you speak of."

The perspiring son of the Essex bargeman and the woman of Normandy bent his head several times in assent,

"Some strange psychic predisposition, dating no doubt from one of your former lives, has favoured the

development of your 'disease'; and the fact that you had no normal training at school or college, no leading by

the poor intellect into the culsdesac falsely called knowledge, has further caused your exceedingly rapid

movement along the lines of direct inner experience. None of the knowledge you have foreshadowed has

Mr. Mudge, sitting in his immovable chair, began to tremble slightly. A wind again seemed to pass over his

"You are merely talking to gain time," he said hurriedly, in a shaking voice. "This thinking aloud delays us. I

see ahead what you are coming to, only please be quick, for something is going to happen. A band is again

corning down the street, and if it playsif it plays WagnerI shall be off in a twinkling."

"Precisely. I will be quick. I was leading up to the point of how to effect your cure. The way is this: You must

"True, true utterly true!" exclaimed the little man, dodging about nervously in the depths of the chair. "But

"By concentration. They are all within you, these centres, although outer causes such as colour, music and

other things lead you towards them. These external things you cannot hope to destroy, but once the entrances

are blocked, they will lead you only to bricked walls and closed channels. You will no longer be able to find

"Quick, quick!" cried the bobbing figure in the chair. "How is this concentration to be effected?"

"This little book," continued Dr. Silence calmly, "will explain to you the way." He tapped the cover. "Let me

now read out to you certain simple instructions, composed, as I see you divine, entirely from my own

personal experiences in the same direction. Follow these instructions and you will no longer enter the state of

Mr. Mudge sat bolt upright in his chair to listen, and John Silence cleared his throat and began to read slowly

But before he had uttered a dozen words, something happened. A sound of street music entered the room

through the open ventilators, for a band had begun to play in the stable mews at the back of the housethe

March from TannhŠuser. Odd as it may seem that a German band should twice within the space of an hour

Mr. Racine Mudge heard it. He uttered a sharp, squeaking cry and twisted his arms with nervous energy

round the chair. A piteous look that was not far from tears spread over his white face. Grey shadows followed

"Hold me fast! Catch me! For God's sake, keep me here! I'm on the rush already. Oh, it's frightful!" he cried

Dr. Silence made a plunge forward to seize him, but in a flash, before he could cover the space between them,

Mr. Racine Mudge, screaming and struggling, seemed to shoot past him into invisibility. He disappeared like

an arrow from a bow propelled at infinite speed, and his voice no longer sounded in the external air, but

seemed in some curious way to make itself heard somewhere within the depths of the doctor's own being. It

was almost like a faint singing cry in his head, like a voice of dream, a voice of vision and unreality.

"Alcohol, alcohol!" it cried faintly, with distance in it, "give me alcohol! It's the quickest way. Alcohol,

The doctor, accustomed to rapid decisions and even more rapid action, remembered that a brandy flask stood

upon the mantelpiece, and in less than a second he had seized it and was holding it out towards the space

above the chair recently occupied by the visible Mudge. But, before his very eyes, and long ere he could

unscrew the metal stopper, he saw the contents of the closed glass phial sink and lessen as though someone

"Thanks! Enough! It deadens the vibrations!" cried the faint voice in his interior, as he withdrew the flask and

set it back upon the mantelpiece. He understood that in Mudge's present condition one side of the flask was

open to space and he could drink without removing the stopper. He could hardly have had a more interesting

But the next momentthe very same moment it almost seemedthe German band stopped midway in its

"Quick!" he shrieked, "stop that band! Send it away! Catch hold of me! Block the entrances! Block the

The music had begun again. It was merely a temporary interruption. The TannhŠuser March started again,

this time at a tremendous pace that made it sound like a rapid twostep, as though the instruments played

But the brief interruption gave Dr. Silence a moment in which to collect his scattering thoughts, and before

the band had got through half a bar, he had flung forward upon the chair and held Mr. Racine Mudge, the

struggling little victim of Higher Space, in a grip of iron. His arms went all round his diminutive person,

taking in a good part of the chair at the same time. He was not a big man, yet he seemed to smother Mudge

Yet, even as he did so, and felt the wriggling form underneath him, it began to melt and slip away like air or

water. The wood of the armchair somehow disentangled itself from between his own arms and those of

Mudge. The phenomenon known as the passage of matter through matter took place. The little man seemed

actually to be interfused with the other's being. Dr. Silence could just see his face beneath him. It puckered

and grew dark as though from some great internal effort. He heard the thin, reedy voice crying his ear to

"Block the entrances, block the entrances!" and thenbut how in the world describe what is indescribable?

John Silence half rose up to watch. Racine Mudge, his face distorted beyond all recognition, was making a

marvellous inward movement, as though doubling back upon himself. He turned funnelwise like water in a

whirling vortex, and then appeared to break up somewhat as a reflection breaks up and divides in a distorting

convex mirror. He went neither forward nor backward, neither to the right nor the left, neither up nor down.

But he went. He went utterly. He simply flashed away out of sight like a vanishing projectile.

All but one leg! Dr. Silence just had the time and the presence of mind to seize upon the left ankle and boot

as it disappeared, and to this he held on for several seconds like grim death. Yet all the time he knew it was a

The foot was in his grasp one moment, and the next it seemedthis was the only way he could describe

itinside his own skin and bones, and at the same time outside his hand and all round it. It seemed mingled

in some amazing way with his own flesh and blood. Then it was gone, and he was tightly grasping a mere

"Gone! gone! gone!" cried a faint, whispering voice somewhere deep within his own consciousness. "Lost!

lost! lost!" it repeated, growing fainter and fainter till at length it vanished into nothing and the last signs of

John Silence locked his red book and replaced it in the cabinet, which he fastened with a click, and when

Barker answered the bell he inquired if Mr. Mudge had left a card upon the table. It appeared that he had, and

when the servant returned with it, Dr. Silence read the address and made a note of it. It was in North London.

"Mr. Mudge has gone," he said quietly to Barker, noticing his expression of alarm.

"Mr. Mudge requires no hat where he is now," continued the doctor, stooping to poke the fire. "But he may

"He didn't go out my way, sir, if you please," stuttered the amazed servant, his curiosity overcoming his

"Mr. Mudge has his own way of coming and going, and prefers it. If he returns by the door at any time

remember to bring him instantly to me, and be kind and gentle with him and ask no questions. Also,

remember, Barker, to think pleasantly, sympathetically, affectionately of him while he is away. Mr. Mudge is

Barker bowed and went out of the room backwards, gasping and feeling round the inside of his collar with

It was two days later when he brought in a telegram to the study. Dr. Silence opened it, and read as follows:

Dr. Silence looked up and saw Barker staring at him bewilderingly. It occurred to him that somehow he knew

"Make a parcel of Mr. Mudge's things," he said briefly, "and address them Thomas Cook Sons, Ludgate

Circus. And send them there exactly a month from today, marked 'To be called for.'"

"Yes, sir," said Barker, leaving the room with a deep sigh and a hurried glance at the wastepaper basket