entrate their desires and their wills on
the things I asked for....' What he wanted her to do was very simple,
but conclusive. He wished 'the spirit hand' to press an electric button
and light a red lamp within the cabinet. The coil and the switch had
been dragged out of the cabinet and thrown on the table. Bottazzi begged
them all not to touch it. No one but Scarpa, Galeotti, and Bottazzi knew
what it was for. 'At a certain moment Eusapia took hold of the first
finger of my right hand and squeezed it with her fingers. A ray of light
from the interior of the cabinet lit up the room'--she had pressed the
contact-breaker with her invisible fingers at the precise time when she
had squeezed with her visible hand the forefinger of Bottazzi. She
repeatedly did this. 'If one of us, be it observed, had lit the lamp,
she would have screamed with pain and indignation.'"

"Was this the climax of his series? Is this _all_ he is willing to
affirm?" queried Harris, with ironic inflection.

"Oh no, indeed. The greatest is yet to come. At the fourth sitting a new
person, Professor Cardarelli, was introduced, and this new sitter
disturbed conditions. Nevertheless, the inexplicable took place. Small
twirling violet flames were seen to drift across the cabinet curtains,
and hands and closed fists appeared over Paladino's head. These have
been photographed, by-the-way. Some of them were of ordinary size, and
others at least three times larger than the psychic's hand and fist.
These flames interest me very much, for I have seen them on several
occasions, but could not believe in them, even though Crookes spoke of
handling them. I must admit their objective reality now. It is absurd to
suppose they were fraudulently produced in this laboratory.

"A stethoscope was taken from Cardarelli's pocket and put together--a
movement requiring the action of two hands. The noise of fingers running
over the keys of a typewriter in the cabinet was plainly heard, although
no writing came. At the fifth sitting the mandolin again moved as if
alive (no one touching it), in a light that made all its movements
observable; and as it did so _Eusapia's hand_ (tightly controlled by
Bottazzi) _made little movements as if to help the instrument to move_.
_Each movement, though it ended in the air, seemed to affect the
mandolin._ Bottazzi says: 'It would be necessary to have Paladino's
fingers in the palm of one's hand, as I had that evening, in order to be
convince