While this curious process was going on, the Doctor had drawn down the window-shades, thus darkening the room, and now approached for the purpose of unhooking from its earthly tabernacle the soul that was to step up to Minnesota and bring back word to his customer “how all the folks got along.” This he accomplished by a few mysterious mesmeric passes, and when the trance was induced, and the spirit had, so to speak, tucked its breeches into its boots ready for the muddy journey, he placed in the hand of Johannes that of the corpus which still remained in the armchair, and said to the disembodied spirit: “Now, I want you to go with this gentleman to Brooklyn and take a fair start from there, and then go where he tells you to, and tell him what things there is there that you see.” Having delivered this injunction in a tone so indescribably savage that he had better a thousand times have struck her in the face, this amiable animal retired to the Babel, taking with him the fried-onion atmosphere. Then the woman in the chair began to speak, in a style the most disagreeable and affected that anybody ever listened to. It was more like that sickening gibberish that nurses call “_baby-talk_,” than anything else in the world. She spoke with a detestable whine, and pronounced each syllable of every word separately, as if she feared a two-syllable word might choke her. Sick at the stomach as was her visitor at the whole babyish performance, he so far controlled his qualms as to note down the words hereunder written. Whoever has heard this woman in a professional way can testify to the verbatim truth of this sketch.