In order to deter every one except your confederate from accepting the offer, you announce at the same time, that the person who volunteers to be shut up in the room must be possessed of considerable courage, or he had better not undertake it. Having thus gained your end, you give your confederate a lamp, which burns with a very dismal light; telling him, in the hearing of the company, to place it on the middle of the floor, and not to feel alarmed at what he may happen to see. You then usher him into the room, and lock the door. You next take a piece of black paper, and a bit of chalk, and giving them to one of the party, you tell him to write the name of any animal he wishes to appear to the person shut up in the room. This being done, you receive back the paper, and after showing it round to the company, you fold it up, burn it in the candle, or lamp, and throw the ashes into a mortar; casting in at the same time a powder, which you state to be possessed of valuable properties. Having taken care to read what was written, you proceed to pound the ashes in the mortar thus: Suppose the word written to be CAT, you begin by stirring the pestle round the mortar several times, and then strike three distinct blows, loud enough for the confederate to hear, and by which he knows that the first letter of the word is C. You next make some irregular evolutions of the pestle round the mortar, that it may not appear to the company that you give nothing but blows, and you then strike one blow to denote A. Work the pestle about again, and then strike twenty blows, which he will know to mean T; finishing your manœuvre by working the pestle about the mortar, the object being to make the blows as little remarkable as possible. You then call aloud to your confederate, and ask him what he sees. At first he is to make no reply. At length, after being interrogated several times, he asks if it be a CAT. That no mistake may be made, each party should repeat to himself the letters of the alphabet in the order of the blows. THE MIRACULOUS SHILLING. Provide a round box, the size of a large snuff-box, and likewise eight other boxes, which will go easily into each other, letting the least of them be of the size to hold a shilling. Observe that all these boxes must shut so freely that they may all be closed at once, by the covers accurately fitting within each other. Previously to commencing your performance, fit the boxes within each other, and place them in a table drawer at another part of the room. You also fit the covers in the same manner, and lay them by the side of the boxes; you likewise provide a silk handkerchief, into one corner of which a shilling is sewed.