am
afraid to say how many operations, and the operator described me as
being surrounded by spirits--I always am according to Mediums, but my
spirits must be eminently unsociable ones, for they seldom give me a
word, and on this occasion refused to be "taken" as resolutely as the
bashful gentleman in the _Graphic_ who resisted the operations of the
prison officials to obtain a sun-picture of his interesting
physiognomy. There was indeed a blotch on one of the negatives, which I
was assured was a spirit. I could not see things in that light.

Foiled on this particular occasion my anxiety was dormant, but never
died out. I still longed for a denizen of the other world to put in an
appearance, and kept on being photographed over and over again until I
might have been the vainest man alive, on the bare hope that the artist
might be a Medium malgre lui or undeveloped. I had heard there were such
beings, but they never came in my way. I was really serious in this
wish, because I felt if it could be granted, the possibility of
deception being prevented, the objectivity of the phenomena would be
guaranteed. At this time I was heretical enough to believe that most
ghosts were due to underdone pork or untimely Welsh rare-bits, and that
the raps assigned to their agency were assignable to the active toes of
the Medium which might be anywhere and up to anything with the
opportunities of a dark seance.

A short time since, however, M. Buguet, a celebrated French Spirit
Photographer came from Paris to London, and received sitters for the
modest sum of _30s._ each. This would have been much beyond my means;
but I suppose my wish had transpired, and that gentleman sent me an
invitation to sit gratis, which, I need not say, I thankfully accepted.
I felt sure that M. Buguet did not know either my long-lost grandmother
or lamented maiden aunt, so that any portraits I might get from him
would be presumably genuine. I sat; and over my manly form, when the
negative came to be cleaned, was a female figure in the act of
benediction. I have no notion how she got there--for I watched every
stage in the operation, and selected my plate myself; but neither, on
the other hand, does she bear the faintest resemblance to anybody I ever
knew.

Still M. Buguet is not my modest photographer. Elated by success so far,
I called on the local gentleman who advertised in the _Medium_; but the
local gentleman was "engaged." I wrote to the local gentleman app