"Oh, there is nothing private. My convictions are not founded on any definite occurrence; but as it happens, I _have_ had one experience which defies explanation. Not in India, but by all that is _mal a propos_ and out of place, in the most modern and material of cities--New York. I'll tell it to you with pleasure. It's an uncommonly good tale, and it has the merit of being first-hand, and capable of proof. It came about like this. A man asked me to dine in a private room at a hotel with two or three other men, bachelors--mutual friends. While we were sitting over dessert, he said, `I've got a little excitement for you fellows this evening. I've engaged a conjurer--thought-reading sort of fellow, to come in and give you an exhibition. He's quite the most uncanny thing in that line that I've ever met. I never believed in second-sight before, but it makes one think. He'll give you a new sensation; I can promise you that.' "Well, he came about half an hour after that. An ordinary-looking fellow--a white man; nothing in the least unusual about him except his eyes--light, colourless-looking eyes, extraordinarily wide and clear-- eyes that gave one an uncanny sort of thrill when they were fixed upon you. You felt that those eyes could see a lot more than would ever fall to your own vision. Well, he told us to sit against the wall at the far end of the room, and each to write something as personal as possible on slips of paper, which were afterwards to be shuffled and handed round. While we were writing he would leave the room. When we had finished, we were to ring a bell and he would return. We ranged our chairs as he said. There were no windows on that side, only the bare papered wall. I couldn't think what to write. It puzzles one when one is suddenly told to do a thing like that. Eventually I put my mother's maiden name, `Mary Winifred Fielding,' and the date of her marriage, 1822. The fellow next me showed me his slip, `I don't believe in any of this trickery.' We chuckled together while I read it. We folded up the papers, put them in a bowl, and drew out the first that came. Then we rang the bell, and the fellow came back. He first shut the door and leant back against it. There were a good eight or ten yards between him and the end of the room where we sat. He looked across at me, and we all laughed together. "`The words written on the paper in your hand are: "Burmah! To the memory of a good old time!" You did not write it yourself--you have never been in Burmah; it was the gentleman to your left who wrote it-- the gentleman with the grey hair. Am I not right, sir?' "`You are,' said my friend, gasping. We did not laugh any more. He pointed to another fellow, and read out what I had written.