My Library

will remember F——, who came from America to astonish the French. Well, actuated by curiosity, I resolved to form one of a circle of six who had made arrangements to test his powers at his own rooms. Accordingly we met him by appointment at the Café Jououy near the Palaise Royal, and together we seven started for his hotel. Now, as I walked along, the idea suggested itself, that perhaps the fellow had made arrangements in his rooms to surprise us by a resort to some mountebankish performance, and therefore, in order to try his sincerity, and at the same time guard against any mere trickery or legerdemain, I suggested that we repair to apartments elsewhere than at his hotel. To my surprise he assented to this arrangement without a murmur, and we repaired to a room at the house of one of the company, Monsieur Benjamin, in the Rue de Clichy. When there, we all sat around a small table with our fourteen hands laid flat upon its top. For a while nothing occurred, save a few knocks or thumps upon the table, which F—— attributed to spirits, but which I suspected his knees produced. While thus we sat (it was broad daylight, and the sun shone brightly through the windows), we distinctly saw, and I actually, palpably felt of, a fifteenth hand. This hand was apparently solid flesh and blood. It appeared to be that of a mulatto girl of fifteen or sixteen summers, and one of the party subsequently