“Tell us the beginning, just the beginning.” “Am tired--alphabet too tedious--Give typewriter ... will inspire typist.” A murmur went round in the darkness. I rose and went to fetch my typewriter, and it was placed upon the table. “It’s a ‘Watson,’” said the table. “I won’t have it. Am a French table. Want a French machine ... want a ‘Durand.’” “‘A Durand?’” said my neighbor on the left, in a disillusioned tone. “Does that brand exist? I don’t know it.” “Nor I.” “Nor I.” “Nor I.” We were much vexed at this untoward circumstance, when the voice of Cardaillac said slowly: “I use nothing but a ‘Durand,’ would you like me to fetch it?” “Can you type without seeing?” “I shall be back in a quarter of an hour,” said he--and he went out without answering. “Oh, if Cardaillac is going to take it up,” said one of the guests, “we shall have a merry time.” However, when the lights were turned up, the faces seemed sterner than one would have expected. Mariotte was quite pale. Cardaillac came back in a very short time--an astonishingly short time, one might have said. He sat down in front of the table facing his “Durand” machine, and darkness was once more established. Suddenly the table declared: “No need of others.... Put your feet on mine ... type.” One heard the tapping of the fingers on the keys. “It’s extraordinary!” exclaimed the typist-medium, “It’s extraordinary! My hands are writing of their own accord.” “What bosh!” whispered Mariotte. “I swear they are, I swear it,” said Cardaillac. * * * * * We remained a long time listening to the tapping of the keys which was every now and then broken by the ringing of the bell at the end of the line and the rasping of the carriage. Every five minutes a sheet was handed to us. We decided to retire to the drawing-room and to read them aloud as Gilbert, getting them from Cardaillac, handed them to us. Page 79 was deciphered in the morning light and the machine stopped. But what it had typed seemed to us exciting enough to make us beg Cardaillac to be good enough to give us the sequel. He did so. And when he had passed many nights seated at the little table with his typing keyboard, we had the complete story of M. Vermont’s adventures. The reader shall now be told them. They are strange and scandalous; their future scribe is _bound_ not to think of printing them. _He will burn them_ as soon as they are finished; so that, had it not been for the complaisance of the little table, no one would ever have turned the leaves. That is why I, convinced of their authenticity, consider it _piquant_ to publish them beforehand. For I hold them to be “veridical,”--as the elect call it--although they have some of the characteristics of wild caricature, and rather resemble an art-student’s funny sketch penciled by way of commentary on the margin of an engraving representing Science herself.