He was standing on the landing, politely holding the little lamp so that we might see our way down the uneven, irregular stairs, and the light fell upon his face.  Was the expression I saw upon it one of triumph, or one of defeated dishonesty?  I could not say.  Even now, though I have thought it all over and over till my head has got dazed and confused, I cannot make up my mind whether he had hoped, by means of his strange mesmeric power, to obtain possession of the Anstruther diamonds—­a design only frustrated by my unlooked-for appearance—­or whether his action was altogether prompted by a determination to demonstrate and vindicate the truth of the phenomena connected with his science.

Sometimes I lean to one view, sometimes to the other.  I have now told the facts of the case simply and without exaggeration just as they occurred, and my readers must judge for themselves whether Dmitri Sclamowsky was, in the matter of Aunt Phoebe’s heirlooms, a disappointed swindler or a triumphant enthusiast.

SAINT OR SATAN.

A story, strange as true—­a story to the truth of which half the inhabitants of the good city of Turin can bear testimony.

Have you ever been to Turin, by the way?  To that city which reminds one of nothing so much as a gigantic chess-board set down upon the banks of the yellow river—­that city with never-ending, straight streets, all running at right angles to each other, and whose extremities frame in delicious pictures of wooded hill or snow-capped Alp; whose inhabitants recall the grace and courtesy of the Parisians, joined to a good spicing of their wit and humour; whose dialect is three-parts French pronounced as it is written; and whose force and frankness strike you with a special charm after the ha-haing of the Florentines, the sonorousness of the Romans and the sing-song of the Neapolitans; to say nothing of the hideousness of the Genoese and the chaos of the Sicilians; that city of kindly greetings and hearty welcome?

Well, if you have given Turin a fair trial, you will know what a pleasant place it is; if you have not, I advise you to do so upon the first occasion that may present itself.

The climate is described by some emulator of Thomson to consist of “Tre mesi d’Inferno, nove d’inverno.”  But then you must remember that Turin houses are provided with chimneys, and Turin floors with carpets, and that no one who does not wish it is forced—­as so many of us have been—­to shiver upon marble pavement and be half suffocated by a charcoal-brazier.  No refuge from the cold save that, one’s bed, or sitting in a church.  And one can neither lie for ever in bed, nor sit the day through in a church, however fine it may be.