264. “Entering a medium’s room one morning, I saw a gentlemanly, intelligent man, apparently about thirty, sitting at the table and putting questions. Soon a tiny rap was heard, and the name Natty was spelled out. ‘Who are you?’ said the man. ‘I am your brother;’ was the answer. ‘No,’ said the man, ‘I had no such brother.’ ‘You had,’ said the rapper. ‘No,’ said the man. ‘Yes,’ said the other. ‘Well, let us see,’ added the man. ‘How old were you, Natty, when you died?’ ‘Five days,’ was the answer. ‘How long since you died?’ ‘Thirty-five years.’ The gentleman here bit his lip in thought, and said—‘I believe there was an infant brother who died before I was born, but I thought they called him Oliver.’ ‘No,’ was the response, ‘they called him Natty, and I am he.’ ‘Natty,’ said the man, ‘how do you know that I am your brother?’ ‘By love,’ he answered. ‘By love?’ said the questioner; ‘but don’t you love others as well as relatives?’ Ans. ‘We like others, and love relatives!’ ‘What,’ it was then asked—‘what is the difference between love and like?’ The word LOVE was immediately written in large letters, two or three inches long, and _like_ was traced under it in _very small_ letters. ‘Natty,’ continued the man, ‘you are not my brother, but are some one else, attempting to impose upon me.’ ‘I am your brother,’ was the earnest rejoinder. ‘Then, will you tell me what sphere you are in?’ ‘The fourth,’ he said. ‘The fourth, ah? Now I’ve caught you—for as you died in infancy, you was fitted for the seventh sphere when you left the earth.’ ‘I have been there;’ was the response. ‘Have been there, and yet are now in the fourth! how is that? are you moving backward? coming down?’ ‘No, I am an adviser in the fourth.’ ‘Adviser! what is that? a sort of superintendent?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Oh! you are in office, then?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you get any pay? We pay well for such things here.’ ‘Yes, I get pay.’ ‘What pay?’ ‘The pleasure of seeing those under me progress.’ 265. “I then said to the gentleman stranger, ‘Sir, you have found your _match_, if not your brother. I think I would own the relationship;’ and in continuance I remarked, that this seemed to be a very bright, cheerful spirit; when there was written—‘I am always laughing.’ 266. “My next remark was—‘Natty, I should like to make your acquaintance.’ ‘Hand out your card;’ was the instant response. Finding no card in my pocket, I wrote, secretly, on a slip of paper—‘Mr. Allen Putnam, Eustis St., Roxbury’—turned the paper over, placing the writing down upon the table, kept my hand over the paper, and asked Natty to make a copy. Instantly the medium’s hand wrote—Mr. A. P., U. St. Rox. The writing on my paper had been seen by me alone, and I was looking for a copy in full, but received only abbreviations, and those of every word, Eustis being reduced to the letter U. This closed my first interview with him.