related the story of M. Cloquet
and the cancer, with great unction, and asked me what I thought of that?
Upon my word, I did not very well know what I did think of it, unless it
was to think it very queer. It appeared to me to be altogether
extraordinary, especially as I knew M. Cloquet to be a man of talents,
and believe him to be honest.

By this time I was nearly magnetised with second-hand facts; and I
became a little urgent for one or two that were visible to my own sense.
I was promised more testimony, and a sight of the process of magnetising
some water that a patient was to drink. This patient was present; the
very type of credulity. He listened to everything that fell from M.
C---- with a _gusto_ and a faith that might have worked miracles truly,
had it been of the right sort, now and then turning his good-humoured
marvel-eating eyes on me, as much as to say, "What do you think of that,
now?" My companion told me, in English, he was a man of good estate, and
of proved philanthropy, who had no more doubt of the efficacy of animal
magnetism than I had of my being in the room. He had brought with him
two bottles of water, and these M. C---- _magnetised_, by pointing his
fingers at their orifices, rubbing their sides, and ringing his hands
about them as if washing them, in order to disengage the subtle fluid
that was to impart to them their healing properties, for the patient
drank no other water.

Presently a young man came in, of a good countenance and certainly of a
very respectable exterior. As the _somnambule_ had left us, and this
person could not consult her, which was his avowed intention in coming,
M. C---- proposed to let me see his own power as a magnetiser, in an
experiment on this patient. The young man consenting, the parties were
soon prepared. M. C---- began by telling me, that he would, by _a
transfusion of his will_, into the body of the patient, compel him to
sit still, although his own desire should be to rise. In order to
achieve this, he placed himself before the young man and threw off the
fluid from his fingers' ends, which he kept in a cluster, by constant
forward gestures of the arms. Sometimes he held the fingers pointed at
some particular part of the body, the heart in preference, though the
brain would have been more poetical. The young man certainly did not
rise; neither did I, nor any one else in the room. As this experiment
appeared so satisfactory to everybody else, I was almost as