na. If the present culprit desired to be set free
from his grotesque position, he must humbly have recourse to her. Miss
Vaughan was in America at the moment, but she generously came to his
rescue as soon as steam could carry her, and restored him his lost front
view by a jocose imposition of hands. I should add that on the very day
when this misadventure took place at Paris, Miss Vaughan was defending
her standpoint in person before the Triangle of Louisville; opinion was
divided about her, and the result appeared uncertain, when the demoniac
tail of St Mark, evacuating the minor devil, who had hired it on a
repairing lease, accepted Asmodeus as a tenant, and violently
circumambulating the apartment belaboured all those whose voices had
been raised against his Vestal. Finally the tassel of the tail turned
into the head of the demon and vowed his devotion to Diana so long as
she remained unmarried; did she dare, however, to desert him for an
earthly consort, he was commander of fourteen legions, and he would
strangle the man of clay.

It would be unkind to Miss Sophia Walder if I let it be supposed for a
moment that the palm of prestige is borne away by her rival. I have
already noted that this lady occasionally fluidifies to the satisfaction
of a select audience, but, like the materialising medium, she finds it a
depleting performance which usually confines her to her room, and her
price, therefore, is five thousand francs. She is first Sovereign in
Bitru, and is defined by the doctor to be in a state of latent
possession, having a semi-diabolical nature and the gift of
substitution. It was possibly at Milan that he witnessed the most
persuasive test of her occult powers. She took him confidentially apart
and explained to him that she had been in a condition of "penetration"
for about three hours. "At dinner the food of which I partake becomes
volatile in my mouth; wine evaporates invisibly the moment it makes
contact with my lips; I eat and drink in appearance, but my teeth
masticate the air." Now this was due, not to the voracity of Bitru, but
to the keen appetite of Baal-Zeboub; the magnetic lady did not, however,
explain this point after the common method of speech; she fixed her
blazing orbs upon the doctor, and he saw flames everywhere; a moment
more and her feet were free from earth; she stretched out her left hand,
and on the open palm he beheld the successive apparitions in characters
of flame of the ten lette