I do not see how any trick is possible in such a case, any more than in the case of the table. My cigarette-holder was grasped by a very strong hand, which wrenched the object from me with a good deal of energy. I was on my guard and asked to see the experiment again. The phenomenon was so singular and so beyond all that we can comprehend that we must first try natural explanations. 1. It is impossible that it could have been Eusapia. I was holding one of her hands and _was looking at the other arm_, and I placed my cigarette-holder in such a position that, _even with her two arms free_, she would not have been able to accomplish such a marvellous thing. 2. It is not probable that it could have been an accomplice; but is it not possible that the unconscious mind of Eusapia suggested to the unconscious mind of a person near the curtain to pass a hand behind it and operate there? Everybody would be acting in good faith and would have been deceived by the unconscious element. This important point ought to be verified, for no experiment would be so valuable if it were once _demonstrated_. Could not Eusapia's departure be put off? We shall not have a similar opportunity, and we surely ought to clear up that phenomenon of the hand. It is very evident that the table was lifted; but that is a material phenomenon which one can readily grant. The hand which came to seize my cigarette-holder performed an act of the will implying an intelligence, but the other is nothing of the kind. Eusapia might lift a table to the height of three feet without my scientific conception of the world being changed by it; but to bring in the intervention of a spirit, that would be to prove the existence of spirits, and you see the consequences. As for the hand which seized the cigarette-case, it is absolutely certain that it was not that of Eusapia (you know that I am very sceptical and that I was looking about me); but close to the curtain, in the salon, there were a good many people, and several times you heard me ask people to stand aside from the curtain. If we two had been able to study Eusapia _absolutely alone_, in a room to which we had the key, the problem would soon be solved.