So he handles all the papers without getting a response. During this time, however, he has dexterously "palmed" one of the ballots, which--while telling the investigator to be patient, as the spirits would doubtless soon come--he opens with his left hand, on his knee, under the edge of the table. A mere glance enables him to read the name. Refolding the paper, and retaining it in his hand, he remarks: "I will touch the ballots again, and perhaps one of them will be designated this time." Dropping among the rest the one he had "palmed," he soon picks it up again, whereat three loud "raps" are heard. "That paper," says he to the investigator, "probably contains the name of the spirit who rapped; please hold it in your hand." Then seizing a pencil, he writes a name, which the investigator finds to be the one contained in the selected paper. If the ballots are few in number, a blank is put with the pile, when the medium "palms" one, else the latter might be missed. It seems the spirits can never give their names without being reminded of them by the investigator, and then they are so doubtful of their own identity that they have but little to say for themselves. One medium to whom I have already alluded, after a sojourn of several years in California--whither he went from Boston, seeking whom he might humbug--has now returned to the East, and is operating in this city. Besides answering sealed letters, he furnishes written "communications" to parties visiting him at his rooms--a "sitting," however, being granted to but one person at a time. His terms are only five dollars an hour. Seated at a table in a part of the room where is the most light, he hands the investigator a strip of blank, white paper, rather thin and light of texture, about a yard long and six inches wide, requesting him to write across one end of it a single question, addressed to a spirit-friend, then to sign his own name, and fold the paper once or twice over what he has written. For instance: "BROTHER SAMUEL:--Will you communicate with me through this medium? WILLIAM FRANKLIN." To learn what has been written, the medium lays the paper down on the table, and repeatedly rubs the fingers of his right hand over the folds made by the inquirer. If that does not render the writing visible through the one thickness of paper that covers it, he slightly raises the edge of the folds with his left hand while he continues to rub with his right; and that admits of the light shining through, so that the writing can be read. The other party is so situated that the writing is not visible to him through the paper, and he is not likely to presume that it is visible to the medium; the latter having assigned as a reason for his manipulations that spirits were able to read the questions only by means of the odylic, magnetic, or some other emanation from the ends of his fingers!