Agreeing each to sleep with a light in his room, they separated, and at about two o’clock Curtis, who had been suffering of late from his liver—­the effect, so the doctor told him, of living a little too well—­and could not sleep, heard a knock at his door.  To his astonishment it was Kelson—­Kelson, in his pyjamas.

“Hulloa!” Curtis exclaimed.  “What on earth brings you here, and however did you come?”

“The usual way!” Kelson said, in what struck Curtis as rather unusual tones.  “I flew here to tell you that we are now in stage three.  Give me paper and ink.  I want to write down the instructions I have received.”

Curtis conducted him into his sitting-room, switched on the lights and, giving him what he wanted, poured out a couple of tumblers of soda-and-milk.

“This will lower my temperature,” he said to himself.  “I shall know if I’m dreaming.”

He then sat by Kelson’s side and observed what he wrote.

“The properties of walking on the water, and of breathing under the water are conferred on you during the forthcoming stage.  You must refrain from red flesh and alcohol, but may eat poultry, fish, fruit, and vegetables in abundance.”

“The devil I may!” Curtis said, in a fury.  “How very kind!  I would rather have roast beef than all the poulets and kippers in Christendom.”

Without noticing this interruption, Kelson went on writing.

“You must also concentrate for one hour every morning.  Grade two in the scale of concentration, though sufficient for projection through ether, will not enable you to offer sufficient resistance to the pressure of water.  You must reach grade three in the scale of concentration, before you can either walk on, or breathe under, the water.  From six to seven a.m. you must fix your eyes on a glass of fresh spring water, and concentrate your very hardest on amalgamating with it, on passing your immaterial ego into it.  At night, before going to bed, you must drink a mixture composed of two drachms of Vindroo Sookum, one drachm of Harnoon Oobey, and one ounce of distilled water.  Vindroo Sookum and Harnoon Oobey are a species of seaweed; the former of a pale salmon colour, the latter of a deep blue.  They were formerly shrubs growing in the wood of Endlemoker in Atlantis, and are now to be found at a depth of two hundred fathoms, twenty miles to the north-east of Achill Island.  These weeds must be well rinsed first; and when the prescribed amount of each has been carefully cut off and weighed, it must be boiled in the distilled water, and the compound, thus formed, allowed to cool before being drunk.  This mixture renders the lungs immune to the action of fluid, and will enable you to breathe as easily in water as in air.  There is still, however, the action of gravity to be considered, and this must be counteracted by sound.  Before experimenting, these Atlantean words must be repeated aloud in the following order:  Karma—­nardka—­rapto—­ nooman—­K—­arma—­oola—­piskooskte.’”