My Library

be effected. The people in the house were, together with the woman and children at the Barrière, his confederates in the scheme. He was a learned man; saw that I could not be easily taken in; and therefore brought the wonders of chemical and ventriloquial sciences to his assistance—the latter in the affair of the floating voice, the former in the matter of the coins or disks. These coins had been coated with a substance that would, on exposure to the atmosphere, exhale away; and with this exhalation the first set of characters would of course disappear. Beneath this external coating was another, which, on contact with the air, would assume a peculiar color; beneath this, in turn, was another, and still another; the last of all, being that on which was written the last series of letters composing a sentence. The appearance of these words was the cue to the patron to utter his cry, dash the coins from his hands, and pretend to swoon. In the commotion resultant therefrom, attention would be drawn from the cause of the apparent disaster, and afford ample opportunity for their removal. The sentence, ‘It is a very strange affair,’ would be the very one naturally suggested under the circumstances, and had happily been selected as the most fitting one to afford exercise to the ventriloquist employed; and this apparent echoing of an unspoken thought would add additional piquancy to the scene, and materially