ently
unanswered; and, secondly, because most of the 'doings' were in the
dark; and it appears to me that, given darkness, there are few things in
the way of conjuring and ventriloquism that could _not_ be done.
Terpsichorean tables and talking hats never had any particular charm for
me, because I could always make a table dance, or a hat say anything I
wanted it to say. I saw the Davenports, and preferred Professor
Anderson. I even went to a dark seance at the Marshalls', and noticed
that when Mr. and Mrs. Marshall had perceptibly partaken of beefsteak
and onions, or some equally fragrant food, for dinner, the breath which
accompanied the spirit-voices was unmistakably impregnated with onions
too; and hence I drew my own conclusions. I am not saying I know how Mr.
and Mrs. Marshall do John King and Katie King. I don't know how
Professor Anderson or Professor Pepper do their tricks. I confess Mr.
Home and the Marshalls have the pull of the professors in one way--that
is, they don't perform on a platform but in a private room, and they let
you examine everything beforehand. Theirs is the ars celare artem.
Again, I don't know how men in the street get out of the very curious
knots in which I have tied them, but I know they do it; and therefore I
am sure the Davenports could do it without calling in the ghost of one's
deceased grandmamma as a sort of Deus--or rather Dea--ex machina. I have
never seen Mr. Home handle fire or elongate. I have seen him 'levitate,'
or float, and I candidly confess I don't know how he does it, any more
than I can solve Sir David Brewster's trick by which four young ladies
can lift a heavy man on the points of their fingers. It's very
mysterious, and very nice for the man.

"So it happened that I had shelved spiritualism for some time, when the
article on 'Spirit Faces' came under my notice. I did not care so much
about the face part of the matter (at least not the spirit face), but I
wanted to test it as a matter of athletics. In one respect the
physiognomy did interest me, for I read that the medium was
pretty--mediums, according to my experience, being generally very much
the reverse--and I found that report had certainly not misrepresented
the young lady in this respect. Her name is now public property, so I
need not veil it under the pseudonyms of Miss Blank, or Asterisk, or
anything of that sort. Miss Florence Cook, then, is a trim little lady
of sweet sixteen, and dwells beneath the paren