“By the pricking of my thumbs
    Something wicked this way comes”—­

and failed to feel quite comfortable.  Soon, however, Mr. Home said:  “The accordion is leaving my hand;” and I saw the 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 plenty of other rappings and noises (I noticed by the way that all the metal things in the room, as castors and cruets—­it was a dining-room—­and wine coolers and bronze chandelier, were clicked and clanged), and after the usual stupid alphabet questions and answers had been exhibited; after also the heavy