When Dr. H---- had finished it, he said to me, "If the spirits (or anybody) can write on that paper without cutting the silk, _I will believe whatever you wish_." I asked, "Are you _quite_ sure that the packet could not be undone without your detecting it?" His answer was--"That silk is not to be procured except from a medical man; it is manufactured expressly for the tying of arteries; and the knots I have made are known only to medical men. They are the knots we use in tying arteries. The seal is my own crest, which never leaves my watch-chain, and I defy anyone to undo those knots without cutting them, or to tie them again, if cut. I repeat--if your friends can make, or cause to be made, the smallest mark on that paper, and return me the box in the condition it now is, _I will believe anything you choose_." And I confess I was very dubious of the result myself, and almost sorry that I had subjected the doctor's incredulity to so severe a test. On the evening appointed we attended the _séance_, Dr. H---- taking the prepared packet with him. He was directed to place it under his chair, but he tied a string to it and put it under his foot, retaining the other end of the string in his hand. The meeting was not one for favorably impressing an unbeliever in Spiritualism. There were too many people present, and too many strangers. The ordinary manifestations, to my mind, are worse than useless, unless they have been preceded by extraordinary ones; so that the doctor returned home more sceptical than before, and I repented that I had taken him there. One thing had occurred, however, that he could not account for. The packet which he had kept, as he thought, under his foot the whole time, was found, at the close of the meeting, to have disappeared. Another gentleman had brought a sealed box, with paper and pencil in it, to the _séance_; and at the close it was opened in the presence of all assembled, and found to contain a closely written letter from his deceased wife. But the doctor's box had evaporated, and was nowhere to be found. The door of the room had been locked all the time, and we searched the room thoroughly, but without success. Dr. H---- was naturally triumphant. "They couldn't undo _my_ knots and _my_ seals," he said, exulting over me, "and so they wisely did not return the packet. Both packets were of course taken from the room during the sitting by some confederate of the medium. The other one was easily managed, and put back again--_mine_ proved unmanageable, and so they have retained it. I _knew_ it would be so!"