glance. As my professional duties took me backwards and forwards to
Boston, which was my central starting-point, sometimes giving me only a
day's rest there, I was in the habit afterwards, when I found I should
have "a night off," of wiring to Mr. Abrow to keep me a seat, so
difficult was it to secure one unless it were bespoken. Altogether I sat
five or six times with the Berry sisters, and wished I could have sat
fifty or sixty times instead, for I never enjoyed any _séances_ so
_much_ in my life before. The cabinet was formed of an inner room with a
separate door, which had to undergo the process of being sealed up by a
committee of strangers every evening. Strips of gummed paper were
provided for them, on which they wrote their names before affixing them
across the inside opening of the door. On the first night I inspected
the cabinet also as a matter of principle, and gummed my paper with
"Mrs. Richardson" written on it across the door. The cabinet contained
only a sofa for Miss Helen Berry to recline upon. The floor was covered
with a nailed-down carpet. The door which led into the cabinet was
shaded by two dark curtains hung with rings upon a brass rod. The door
of the _séance_ room was situated at a right angle with that of the
cabinet, both opening upon a square landing, and, to make "assurance
doubly sure," the door of the _séance_ room was left open, so that the
eyes of the sitters at that end commanded a view, during the entire
sitting, of the outside of the locked and gummed-over cabinet door. To
make this fully understood, I append a diagram of the two rooms--
[Illustration]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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