d not look
forward and see that I was to have such a large and cultivated
gathering. You cannot, sir, ask to have your own mere personal
business, for business it is with you, take precedence of the
scientific quests of all these other ladies and gentlemen. I have
planned to materialize men of many nations, with whom all may converse
if they please; Confucius, the great Chinese; Caesar, the great Roman;
Mohammed, the great Turk; Powhattan, the great Indian, and others.
Your business must wait."

"My friends," said the Englishman, appealing to the assemblage, "I
throw myself upon your good nature. My grandfather was the owner of a
small estate in Ireland. In a rebellion, the Irish burned every
building on the place and it has since been deserted. He had buried a
sum of money before he fled during the rebellion and we have a chart
telling where it was buried. But the chart referred to buildings and
trees that were subsequently utterly destroyed. We have no marks to
guide us. I am sadly in need of money. My grandfather's ghost could
tell me where the treasure is. I shall suffer financial detriment if I
do not catch the train at eleven and must attend to several matters
before that. You have heard my case. May I not ask you all to grant me
the indulgence of having my affair disposed of now?"

Mr. Middleton and several others were about to endorse the justice of
the Englishman's request, when Mr. Smitz hastily forestalled them by
saying that all should be heard from and turning to four personages
who sat together at a point where the line of chairs of the circle
passed before a large and mysterious cabinet set in the corner of the
wall, and asking their opinion, they all four in one voice began to
object to any alteration of the program of the evening, adverting
somewhat to the Boer War, the oppressions in Ireland, and to the
Revolution and the War of 1812. When they had done, there was no one
who cared to say a word for the Englishman or an Englishman, and Mr.
Smitz announced that Confucius would be the next materialization and
that all might address him in his native tongue. Of this permission, a
small red-head gentleman, whose demeanor advertised him to be in a
somewhat advanced state of intoxication, availed himself and remarked
slowly:

"Hello, John. Washee, washee? Sabe how washee? Wlanter be Melican
man?"

To this the great sage vouchsafed no reply save a contemptuous stare,
and the red-headed gentleman observed