sented, and of course did it, the 'cute
individual retiring into private life for the rest of the evening.
Another wanted Miss Fay's mouth to be bound with a handkerchief, and
there was no objection raised, until the common-sense and humanity of
the audience protested against such a needless cruelty on a broiling
night and in that Cumaean cave. An excited gentleman in front of me, too,
whose mission I fancy was simply to protest against the spiritual
character of the phenomena (which was never asserted) would interrupt us
all from time to time by declaring his intense satisfaction with it all.
It was a splendid trick. We tried to convince him that his individual
satisfaction was irrelevant to us, but it was, as Wordsworth says,
"Throwing words away." It was a beautiful trick; and he was satisfied,
quite satisfied.

The Dark Seance, which formed the second part of the performance, was a
dreadful mistake. It was not only unsatisfactory in result, but--and no
doubt this was the reason--it was so mismanaged as to threaten more than
once to eventuate in a riot. Twelve or fourteen persons were to form a
committee representing the audience, and to sit in a circle, with the
Indescribable Phenomenon in their centre, while we remained below in
Egyptian darkness and received their report. Of course we all felt that
we--if not on the committee--might just as well be sitting at home or in
the next parish as in the cave of Cumae. The method of electing the
committee was briefly stated by Colonel Fay to be "first come first
served," and the consequence was a rush of some fifty excited people on
to the platform, with earnest requests on the part of the proprietary to
be "still." There was no more stillness for the rest of the evening. The
fifty were pruned down to about fifteen of the most pertinacious, who
would not move at any price; in fact, the others only descended on being
promised that the dark sitting should be divided into two, and another
committee appointed. The Indescribable Phenomenon took her seat on the
camp-stool in the centre, where she was to remain clapping her hands, to
show she was not producing the manifestations. The gas was put out and
darkness prevailed--darkness, but not silence. The disappointed and
rejected committee men--and women--first began to grumble in the freedom
which the darkness secured. The committee was a packed one. They were
Spiritualists. This was vigorously denied by somebody, who said he saw