"Are you sure that Robert is not using a little muscular force?" asked I. "Bob? Oh no; he wouldn't do such a thing. He knows how anxious we are to discover the truth that lies at the bottom of these strange developments. And look how lightly his hands rest on the table--the fingers hardly touch it. But Bob has a great deal of electricity about him." He looked as though he had. "And I have observed," continued Mrs. Dutton, "that boys and very young men are more successful than any others in moving tables." If that had not been announced to me as a scientific fact, I should have regarded it as a suspicious circumstance. But manner has a great effect, and Mrs. Dutton's grand emphatic way impressed me so strongly that I listened with the unquestioning reliance of an ignorant, but trusting disciple. I watched the table as it went reeling and pitching, in a blind and purposeless sort of way, about the room, closely attended by the three who had set it in motion. "Now take your hands off, and perhaps it will follow you," said I. That was an unfortunate request of mine, for, with the lifting of the hands, all movement in the table ceased. Bob took the opportunity thus afforded him, and made his escape from the room. We spent a long time in trying to "charge the table," as we called it in our wisdom, again, but were unsuccessful. I was astonished in the midst of our attempts, and just as the table began to make its usual quiver preparatory to a start, to hear the clock strike three. I hastened home to dinner without the receipt, and with the pudding and the calls still unmade, but with my mind so full of perplexed wonder at what I had seen and heard, that I hardly gave a thought to my omissions. We were discussing the matter in a family circle in the evening, and I presume most of the other households in Westbridge were engaged in the same way, when two young ladies were shown into the parlor. "We have come to borrow one of your tables--your very smallest, Mrs. Forsyth; and, Pauline, we want you to come back with us. You know how these experiments are tried, I believe. Mrs. Dutton says you were in there this morning, and saw how they did it. We have been trying in vain for the last hour, and at last I came to the conclusion that our tables were all too large, and I told mamma I was sure you would lend us one, and come and see if we omitted anything essential." "Certainly," said I, "I will do all I can--that is very little. I have not succeeded yet in any attempt I have made. How shall we get the table carried round? Our servants are unfortunately out or engaged." "Oh, we can carry it ourselves," said Miss Preston, an enthusiast, whom no trifling obstacles daunted; and we passed through the quiet streets of Westbridge carrying the table between us, and amusing ourselves with the curious surprise of the few pedestrians we met, as the full moonlight fell on us and our burden.