The whole apparatus was mounted upon a tripod with movable legs, so that it could be turned in every direction. It will naturally be asked, how could Professor Cracker expect by such natural means to discover anything supernatural, and what is the benefit of looking at the reflection of a thing in a mirror, if it might be just as well seen directly with the eye? As to the first question, Professor Cracker did not admit the existence of anything beyond the common aspect of nature, and needed therefore no instrument for its discovery; while in regard to the second question, he said that direct vision was unscientific and unreliable, because what a man sees, or believes to see, may be caused by irregular cerebral action, hallucination, defective sight, ecstasy, trance, clairvoyance, or other diseases; but mirrors could not be deceived--they would not become hallucinated, or enter into a state of ecstasy:--they only showed what was actually true, and there was no humbug about them. Direct sight was well enough for common people with common sense, but indirect vision for science. Heretofore the great merit of this spiritoscope was, as Professor Cracker repeatedly pointed out, that it had never produced any other than negative results, but these had been obtained unfailingly on all occasions, for it had actually never indicated the presence of any genius, gnome, ghost, or spirit whatever; but as the instrument was constructed according to unquestionable principles, these negative results were fully sufficient to prove the correctness of Professor Cracker’s theory. On this occasion, however, there seemed to be something the matter with the spiritoscope. Be it that the mirrors were not in order, or that even scientific and indirect vision may be deceptive, there was evidently some kind of an obscuration within the tube, which could not be explained by natural causes. In vain Professor Cracker repeatedly cleaned his spectacles, and ultimately substituted coloured glasses for them; the fact was undeniable that something dark, some sort of a shadow, appeared repeatedly within the field of indirect vision, and this something must have been alive, for it moved about by means of some energy contained within itself, and without being kinetically impelled by any discoverable extraneous force. Repeatedly the Professor exclaimed the ominous word: “rot!” and “bosh!” and “impossible!” His scepticism had to give way before the evidence produced by his spiritoscope, and at last he was overcome by the conviction of having discovered a gnome. He looked somewhat pale, as with bated breath and with ill-suppressed excitement he announced the discovery to his colleagues.