Florian poured it out gracefully, and touched the knob of the siphon. Then he handed it, foaming, still bland as ever, to the hesitating American. “Now, let’s be frank with one another, Mr Holmes,” he said, with cheerful promptitude. “I don’t want to hurt you. You’re a very smart man, and I admire your smartness. I lay low to-night, as you justly observed, and I’m game to lie low—if you’ll take my terms—in future. I’m not going to blow upon you, and I’m not going to stand in the way of your success in life; but I just want to know—how did you manage those envelopes?” “If you think it’s a trick, why, the envelopes would be a long chalk the easiest part of it,” the Seer responded, with a dry little cough. “The real difficulty, of course, would be to read in the dark what folks had written. And that’s the part, I claim, that I do myself by pure force of thought—in short, by psychic transference.” He stared hard at his host. Their eyes met searchingly. It was seldom that Florian did a vulgar or ungraceful thing; but, as Mr Joaquin Holmes uttered those high-sounding words, and looked him straight in the face with great solemnity, Florian gravely winked at him. Then he raised that priceless Venetian glass goblet to his curling lips, took a long pull at the whiskey without speaking a word, and went over to a desk by the big front window. From it he took out a pack of cards, and returned with them in his hand. “Shuffle them,” he said, briefly, to the uneasy Seer, in his own very tone. And the American shuffled them. Florian picked one out at random, and held it before him, face down, for some seconds in silence. “Now, I can’t do this trick like you,” he said, in a very business-like voice; “but I can do it a little. Only, I’m obliged to feel the card all over with my fingers like this; and I’m often not right as to the names of the suits, though I can generally make a good shot at the pips and numbers. This is a three that I’ve drawn—I think, the three of spades; but it may be clubs—I don’t feel quite certain.” He turned it up. Sure enough, it was a three, but of clubs not spades. “I’ll try another,” he said, unabashed. And he drew one and felt it. “This is a nine of diamonds,” he continued, more confidently, after a moment’s pause. The American took it from him, without turning up its face, drew his forefinger almost imperceptibly over the unexposed side, and answered without hesitation, “Yes; you’re right—that’s it—the nine of diamonds.” Florian pulled out a third, and felt it again carefully with the tips of his fingers. “It’s a picture card this time,” he went on: “King, Queen, or Knave of Hearts, I’m not sure which. I’m no good at picture cards. They’re all a blur to me. I can tell them only by the single pips in the corners.”