62 A PSYCHICAL PHENOMENON 



how many, in those stage-coach days, had been to the 

 great falls ? " Ach, du bist kein Amerikaner," my play- 

 mates would exclaim, " wenn du Niagaara nicht gesehen 

 hast !" imagining, no doubt, that this world - famed cata- 

 ract was at every man's back door. And my never even 

 having seen a slave stamped me still more of an impostor. 



To wander for a moment from anything akin to horse- 

 flesh or America, to what, if imaginative, I would trans- 

 form into a psychical phenomenon : The little Polish noble 

 before referred to and I became fast friends, and for years 

 wandered arm in arm around the playground. Nearly 

 forty years ago we separated, and neither, for four dec- 

 ades, heard aught of the other, nor made any effort to 

 hunt him up. In April last I landed at Constantinople 

 as usual with tourists out of money and repaired at 

 once to my bankers. My letter of credit and draft went 

 into Mr. A's private office for approval. Almost at once 

 out he came with, " Bless me, you are the very man !" 

 " No doubt," I replied ; " I always have been, but why 

 just now ?" " Were you ever at school in Belgium ?" he 

 asked. " Yes." " Did you have a school - mate named 



Ladislas Cz ski?" "Why, yes." "Well, he is now 



Mo er Pacha, Inspector-General of Cavalry, and Aide- 

 de-camp to H. I. M. the Sultan, and only last week he 

 told me he once had a school-mate named Theodore Dodge, 

 and asked me to write to my correspondents in America 

 and see if I could find trace of him !" Here, then, had 

 my ancient school-friend, for the first time in forty years, 

 sought to hunt me up, and I, for the first time in my life, 

 had turned up at Constantinople. And yet it was mere 

 coincidence. Is not this such stuff as dreams are made 

 of or superstition, or psychology? How easy to warp 

 this occurrence into something, let us say, spooky ! 



The ignorance on the part of Europeans concerning 



