“He pushed back the fauteuil into the corner whence he had drawn it; the veiled figure by which it was occupied remained still and motionless as death. He then opened a small door in the wainscot, belonging to a cupboard filled with shelves, containing bottles of all sorts and sizes, and drew from it a phial, which he filled from a jug of that which stood upon the floor, and having performed various ‘_passes_’ and evolutions over it, he handed it to me, bidding my companion and myself to lose no time in retiring, for others were waiting outside. “His dismissal of us was as abrupt as possible, scarcely, indeed, consistent with politeness. ‘You have told your ailments and your griefs—you bear with you the never-failing cure—now begone.’ “With these words he opened the same low door through which he had let out the two visitors whom we had succeeded; and Boufflers and I passed out, obeying, without a word, the gesture of the magician, which pointed towards the passage beyond. “Such is the history of my first interview with the great Cagliostro. To you, who behold daily the strange and varied examples of magnetism, my story will perhaps appear pale and puerile; but you must remember that, at the time, the thing was new, and, notwithstanding all that has been discovered since, none has surpassed him; even to this very hour, the secret of Cagliostro has not been discovered. It is supposed that ventriloquism was much employed by him in his various _tours de force_. Perhaps it was made the agent of deception in my own case, and the figure veiled with black crape may have been a mere puppet set up to delude the credulous. The circumstance which would seem to favour greatly the suspicion of imposture is, that, as Cagliostro never employed twice the same agency, the _consultant_ could never come _prepared_ to watch and detect the machinery of his experiments, and in fact, being always taken by surprise, had no leisure to think of anything else than the consultation he had come to hold. Again, how _could_ the adept have known, by natural means, that the Marquise de Br**, whom he had not suffered me to name, was young and beauteous—that she possessed eardrops of emerald and topaz, which mixture of jewels was peculiar, and that she would wear them on that very night? All these reflections completely bewildered me, as I hastened on to the Opera, certain that the marquise would be there, full of curiosity to see if her dress and appearance would correspond with Cagliostro’s description. Boufflers could not help me, nor suggest a single idea to solve the mystery, so absorbed was he in the memory of the strange scene he had been witnessing—so completely wonder-struck by the silence and mystery of the whole proceeding.