Читать книгу The Four-Masted Cat-Boat, and Other Truthful Tales онлайн

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Then he went over to a shelf on which stood a long line of bottles of the size of cod-liver-oil bottles, and taking one down, he said: “Now, here is Jokoleine, of which we are the sole agents. This will make a poor joke salable, and is in pretty general use in the city, although some editors will not buy a joke that smells of it.”

I noticed a tall, black-haired, Svengalic-looking person in an inner room, and I asked Mr. Cose who he was.

“That is our hypnotizer. The most callous editors succumb to his gaze. Take him with you when you have anything to sell. We rent him at a low figure, considering how useful he is. He has had a busy season, and is tired out, but that is what we pay him for. If he were to die you’d notice a difference in many of the periodicals. The poorer the material, the better pleased he is to place it. It flatters his vanity.”

I assured him that I was something of a hypnotist myself, and, thanking him for his courtesy, was about to come away, when he picked up what looked like a box of tacks and said: