Whilst the family with whom Paine boarded was away, one day, in attendance at a funeral, he took up several of the floor boards of the back parlor, and on the under side of them affixed a lever, with a cross-piece at one end of it; and, in the ends of the cross-piece, bits of wire were inserted, the wire being just as far apart as the legs of the table to be moved. Small holes were made in the floor-boards for the wire to come through to reach the table-legs. The other end of the lever came within an inch or two of the wall. When all the arrangements were completed, and the table being properly placed in order to move it, Mr. Paine had only to insert one end of a short iron rod in a hole in the heel of his boot, put the other end of the rod through a hole in the floor, just under the edge of the carpet near the wall, and then press the rod down upon the end of the lever. The movements necessary in fixing the iron rod to its place were executed while he was picking up his handkerchief, that he had purposely dropped. The middle of the lever was attached to the floor, and the end with the cross-piece, being the heavier, brought the other end close up against the floor, the wires in the cross-piece having their points just within the bottom of the holes in the floor. The room was carpeted, and there were little marks on the carpet, known only to Paine, that enabled him to know just where to place the table. Pressing down the end of the lever nearest the wall, an inch would bring the wires in the cross-piece on the other end of the lever against the legs of the table, and slightly raise the latter. One of the wires would strike the table-leg a very little before the other did, and that enabled the "medium" to very nicely rap time to the tunes that were sung or played. Of course, no holes that any one could observe would be made in the carpet by the passage of the wires through it. For appearance' sake, Paine, before his detection, visited, by invitation, the houses of several different spiritualists, for the purpose of holding seances; but he never got a table to move "without contact" in any other than the place where he had properly prepared the conditions. CHAPTER XVI. SPIRITUALIST HUMBUGS WAKING UP.--FOSTER HEARD FROM.--S. B. BRITTAN HEARD FROM.--THE BOSTON ARTISTS AND THEIR SPIRITUAL PORTRAITS.--THE WASHINGTON MEDIUM AND HIS SPIRITUAL HANDS.--THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS AND THE SEA-CAPTAIN'S WHEAT-FLOUR.--THE DAVENPORT BROTHERS ROUGHLY SHOWN UP BY JOHN BULL.--HOW A SHINGLE "STUMPED" THE SPIRITS.