he mysterious thing crawling
on the floor like a lame dog till it got into a corner. Of course, I
suspected a secret string; but all at once it moved out and came back,
moaning AEolianly as it went, and stood up beside the chair of Mrs.
Colonel N.S., who patted it lovingly; thence passing behind me it went
and stood beside the Countess, who also caressed it; and then Mr. Home
said: "Now ask the spirit to come to you;" whereto I acceded, and the
accordion crept near me, as if unwillingly, and stood up; but when I
touched it the thing shrank from my unsympathetic hand, and fell down
flop.

After this, I noticed that my naval friend was staring with all his eyes
at something over our military widow's head, and that his hair (it is
red, which colour is very spiritualistic) stood on end as with fear.
"What's the matter, P.?" I asked. "Don't you see it?" responded he.
"What?" "The grey figure behind Mrs. N.S., bearded like an Egyptian
Sphinx." "That's the Colonel!" exclaimed Mr. Hall, and the widow bowed
religiously, with a "Dear! is it you?" On this, as my friend was
terribly frightened, we soon took leave; and when we went home, I found
that he was so pursued by "spirits" rapping all about him, that he
actually vacated his own room and slept in mine, for protection against
the invisible, on two chairs till morning broke; when he feared the
spirits no longer. I may mention that this insight into an immaterial
world (he having been inclined before to pyrrhonism) quite altered his
career, and that soon after he took holy orders. In this connection I
may state, that according to a printed account I have seen, both Mr. and
Mrs. Hall were converted from avowed materialism by spirit
manifestation, and that when the question of "_Cui bono?_" is raised,
his experience and that of divers others (the aforesaid Dr. Chambers in
particular) will avouch for the practical usefulness of these
inexplicable marvels.

But I must have done, with only one other reminiscence soon after that
at Ashley Place. This time the venue is Fitzroy Square, and the company
(to omit needless detail) was a polyglot one, consisting chiefly of a
German merchant, a Hebrew financier, a French governess, my naval friend
aforesaid, who was quick at Latin, and I, who more or less remembered my
Greek. Of course English was represented in the two only other guests;
and it will be seen how strangely philology enters into this my next and
concluding anecdote. After ple