At first he could scarcely believe his own eyes, he fancied he was laboring either under an optical delusion, delirium, or hallucination of the brain, induced by his illness; but on reaching out his hand to _feel_ whether the table was absolutely removed, he became sensible, beyond all doubt, that it had not only moved away, but was then silently traversing the room. He watched its slow progress along the floor with intense emotion, and noticed that, when it reached the right hand side of the fire-place, its usual stand, it became stationary. The effect of this unaccountable movement of the table, combined with previous circumstances, operated on Mr. Crofton’s corporeal system, just as if he had swallowed a dozen papers of James’s powders. At first he became cold as lead, but when the table stopped, and the candle appeared to be burning blue, and he was every instant expecting _something_ would appear, he burst into a violent perspiration, and the fear of taking cold prevented him from getting up to investigate the cause of the table’s volition; so he continued gazing and perspiring until the candle, which was nearly burnt out, dropped down into the socket; and as the light alternately flickered up or fell, he again saw the table, _of its own mere motion_, making its way back toward the bed-side, as slowly as it had retreated, and then it stopped at the exact spot from whence it had taken its mysterious departure, of which he made certain by rising on his elbow, and raising the slide in the candlestick; and just at that moment he fancied he heard a mouse run along the carpet; yet the idea of a mouse moving a table backward and forward, across a large room, was too absurd to be entertained for a moment. In a state of most painful perplexity and suspense he passed the first part of the night, but at last fell asleep; and on awakening late the next day, he found the copious perspiration which he had been thrown into, had had the most salutary effect on his gout. When he got up, he minutely examined the table; but after a long inspection of it, he failed to discover the slightest cause for its extraordinary perambulations backward and forward along the room. A short time after this unaccountable movement of the table, a friend came to breakfast with him one morning, and as the maid servant could not with propriety be in the room to arrange it, during the time his friend was there, they went out together, leaving the breakfast equipage on the table, to be removed, and the room put to rights, at leisure. When Mr. Crofton returned in the afternoon, Marianne’s handsome features, as she let him in, indicated that all was not right. She followed him up stairs. “Oh, sir,” were her first words, “I have been _so_ frightened; I’ll never enter this room alone again.” “Why, what’s the matter, Marianne?”