famous members of the occult world stood, calmly conscious of their value and in no wise upset or discomposed.  Verano stroked his Roman features, and ran his large white hand through his curly fringe; Dr. Birdie Soames tapped her skull; Mrs. Eliza Doubleway played with her bead bracelets; Mr. Bernard Wilkins and Madame Charlotte Humm conversed together in dreamy murmurs; while Professor Elijah Chapman shook his brass-coloured hair till it fell forward over his variegated shirt-front, and glanced inquiringly at the multitudes of anxious noses which offered themselves to his inspection beneath the glare of the electric lights.

Mr. and Madame Sagittarius, completely overlooked in the throng, elbowed, trampled upon, jogged from behind and prodded from before, gazed with a passion of bitter envy at their worshipped rivals, who were set in the full blaze of success, while they languished in the outer darkness of anonymous obscurity.

“O miseris hominum men—­don’t set your feet on me, sir, if you please!” cried Madame. “O pectorae caec—­ma’am, I beg you to take your elbow from my throat this minute!”

But even her powerful and indignant organ was lost in the hubbub that mingled with the wild music of the guitars, to which was now added the tinkle of bells and the vehement click of a round dozen of castanets, marking the bull-fighting rhythm of a new air called “The Espada’s Return to Madrid.”

“Jupiter!” she gurgled.  “I shall be suff—­”

“Mr. Amos Towle!” roared the footman savagely.

“The great medium from the Wick!”

“Towle the seer!”

“Amos Towle, the famous spiritualist!”

“Mr. Towle who materialises!”

“The celebrated Towle!”

“The great and only Towle!”

“Oh, is it the Towle?”

“I must see Towle!”

“Where is he?  Oh, where is Towle?”

“Towle who communicates with the other world!”

“Towle the magician!”

“Towle the hypnotist!”

“Towle the soothsayer!”

“The magnetic Towle!”

“The electric Towle!”

“We must—­we must see Towle!”

Such were a very few of the exclamations that instantly burst forth upon the conclusion of the footman’s announcement.  The elbowing and trampling became more violent than ever, and Mrs. Bridgeman was forced—­from lack of room—­to forego her society start, though she was still able to indulge in her society smile, as she bowed, with almost swooning graciousness, to a short, perspiring, bald and side-whiskered man in greasy broadcloth, who looked as if he would have been quite at home upon the box of a four-wheeled cab, as indeed he would, seeing that he had driven a growler for five-and-twenty years before discovering that he was the great and only Towle, medium, seer, and worker-of-miracles-in-chief to the large and increasing crowd that lives the silly life.