Now for it:  here goes!  In the year 1841, there was a man living at Portland, Maine, whose life, were it faithfully written out, would be one of the most amusing, perhaps one of the most instructive, books of our day.  Energetic, hopeful, credulous to a proverb, and yet sagacious enough to astonish everybody when he prospered, and to set everybody laughing at him when he did not, he had gone into all sorts of speculation, head over heels, in the course of a few years, and failed in everything he undertook.  At one time, he was a retail dry-goods dealer, and failed:  then a manufacturer by water power of cheap household furniture, and failed again:  then a large hay-dealer:  then a holder of nobody knows how many shares in the Marr Estate, whereby he managed to feather his nest very handsomely, they say; then he went into the land business, and bought and sold township after township, till he was believed to be worth half a million, and used to give away a tithe of his profits to poor widows, at the rate of ten thousand dollars a year; offering the cash, but always giving on interest—­simple interest—­which was never paid—­failed:  tried his hand at working Jewell’s Island, in Casco Bay, at one time, for copperas; and at another, for treasures buried there by Captain Kyd.  Let us call him Colonel Jones, for our present purpose; that being a name he went by, at a pinch, for a short period.

Well, one day he called upon me—­it was in the year 1842, I should say—­and, shutting the door softly, and looking about, as if to make sure that no listeners were nigh, and speaking in a low voice, he asked if I had a few minutes to spare.

I bowed.

He then drew his chair up close to mine, so near as to touch, and, looking me straight in the eyes, asked if I was a believer in animal magnetism; waiting, open-mouthed, for my answer.

“Certainly,” said I.

Whereupon he drew a long breath, and fell to rubbing his hands with great cheerfulness and pertinacity.

“In clairvoyance, too—­perhaps?”

“Most assuredly—­up to a certain point.”

“I knew it!  I knew it!” jumping up and preparing to go.  “Just what I wanted—­that’s enough—­I’m satisfied—­good-by!”

“Stop a moment, my good fellow.  The questions you put are so general that my answers may mislead you.”

He began to grow restless and fidgety.

“Although I am a believer in what I call animal magnetism and clairvoyance, I would not have you understand that I am a believer in a hundredth part of the stories told of others.  What I see with my own eyes, and have had a fair opportunity of investigating and verifying, that I believe.  What others tell me, I neither believe nor disbelieve.  I wait for the proof.  Suppose you state the case fairly.”

“Do you believe that a clairvoyant can see hidden treasure in the earth, and that it would be safe to rely upon the assurances of such a person made in the magnetic sleep?”