“How rudely this conceit was broken up, how horribly I was convinced of my mistaken estimate of the man before us, will very soon be seen. As for his skill in detecting the coin, the sofa, and the plates, I had already secretly accounted. I remembered Caspar Hauser, and several other _Sensitives_, who could detect the presence of metals by what may be called ‘magnetic sense.’ His description of the dark bed-room _au troisième_, was very simple, for nearly all old houses have such chambers on that floor; this was an old house; Vatterale saw it, and made what preliminary capital he could from his acuteness. With the present weight of experience; with the memory of the deeds of the mystical Ravalette still fresh in mind, of course I could not be very highly interested in such displays of minor magic as I felt convinced were very shortly to be made by the conjuring gentleman before us. “Suddenly the man whose pretensions I had just been inwardly criticising, partially raised himself from the stool, threw back his head until his long, wavy locks fell upon his shoulders, and muttered between his teeth, as if the word-birth was extremely painful, ‘HE IS COMING!’ and we noticed that his face, naturally of a dingy yellow, suddenly became of an ashen-hued paleness, and his eyes darted forth luminous sparks that were plainly visible even amid the glare of that brilliantly-lighted apartment; and at the same instant he placed his right hand over the region of his heart--that is to say, over that part where nine-and-ninety of every hundred suppose the heart to be, namely, under the left breast. He did this as if to repress a rising pang, then turning to his audience, he exclaimed--‘Look sharp! Be firm! be fearless! be attentive! but if you would avoid danger, a nameless, but great danger, stir not, move not from your seats. Grasp the cord, retain each other’s hands, make what remarks you may deem proper, _but stir not an inch_--a single inch from your seats, happen what may! I am going to surprise you.’ “We all assented verbally, and not a few of the company began even to joke him on his sorcery and magic, when we all started from our seats, but were instantly motioned back by an anxious frown and a commanding, magisterial wave of his right hand. The simultaneous movement on our part, was caused by a _yell_, for such it was, that proceeded, not, as might be anticipated, from a female, but from a Mr. Theodore Dwight, an American gentleman, hailing from Philadelphia--and at the present time still dwelling there. “This person, as all who know him will certify, is no weak, puling, nerveless man, for a man more the opposite of all this could scarce be found in a month’s search.