"Then what do they generally call you?"

A pause.

"I ask you, what do they generally call
you?"

The spirit, evidently under coercion,
responded, in a most solemn manner, "Port!"

This awful communication caused the
writer to lie prostrate, on the verge of
insensibility, for a quarter of an hour: during
which the rappings were continued with
violence, and a host of spiritual appearances
passed before his eyes, of a black hue, and
greatly resembling tadpoles endowed with
the power of occasionally spinning themselves
out into musical notes as they swam down
into space. After contemplating a vast
Legion of these appearances, the writer
demanded of the rapping spirit:

"How am I to present you to myself?
What, upon the whole, is most like you?"

The terrific reply was, "Blacking."

As soon as the writer could command his
emotion, which was now very great, he
inquired:

"Had I better take something?"

Answer: "Yes."

Question: "Can I write for something?"

Answer: "Yes."

A pencil and a slip of paper which were on
the table at the bedside immediately bounded
into the writer's hand, and he found himself
forced to write (in a curiously unsteady
character and all down-hill, whereas his own
writing is remarkably plain and straight) the
following spiritual note.

"Mr. O. D. S. Pooney presents his compliments
to Messrs. Bell and Company,
Pharmaceutical chemists, Oxford Street, opposite
to Portland Street, and begs them to have
the goodness to send him by Bearer a five-
grain genuine blue pill and a genuine black
draught of corresponding power."

But, before entrusting this document to
Alexander Pumpion (who unfortunately lost
it on his return, if he did not even lay
himself open to the suspicion of having wilfully
inserted it into one of the holes of a perambulating
chesnut-roaster, to see how it would
flare), the writer resolved to test the rapping
spirit with one conclusive question. He
therefore asked, in a slow and impressive
voice:

"Will these remedies make my stomach
ache?"

It is impossible to describe the prophetic
confidence of the reply. "YES." The assurance
was fully borne out by the result, as the
writer will long remember; and after this
experience it were needless to observe that
he could no longer doubt.

The next communication of a deeply
interesting character with which the writer was
favored, occurred on one of the leading lines
of railway. The circumstances under which
the revelation was made to him—on the second
day of January in the present year—were
these: He had recovered from the effects of
the previous remarkable visitation, and had
again been partaking of the compliments of
the season. The preceding day had been
passed in hilarity. He was on his way to a
celebrated town, a well-known commercial
emporium where he had business to transact,
and had lunched in a somewhat greater hurry
than is usual on railways, in consequence of
the train being behind time. His lunch had
been very reluctantly administered to him by
a young lady behind a counter. She had
been much occupied at the time with the
arrangement of her hair and dress, and her
expressive countenance had denoted disdain.
It will be seen that this young lady proved
to be a powerful Medium.

The writer had returned to the first-class
carriage in which he chanced to be travelling
alone, the train had resumed its motion, he
had fallen into a doze, and the unimpeachable
watch already mentioned recorded forty-five
minutes to have elapsed since his interview
with the Medium, when he was aroused by a
very singular musical instrument. This
instrument, he found to his admiration not
unmixed with alarm, was performing in his
inside. Its tones were of a low and rippling
character, difficult to describe; but, if such a
comparison may be admitted, resembling a
melodious heart-burn. Be this as it may,
they suggested that humble sensation to
the writer.

Concurrently with his becoming aware of
the phenomenon in question, the writer
perceived that his attention was being solicited
by a hurried succession of angry raps in the
stomach, and a pressure on the chest. A
sceptic no more, he immediately communed
with the spirit. The dialogue was as follows:

Question: "Do I know your name?"

Answer: "I should think so!"

Question: "Does it begin with a P?"

Answer (second time): "I should think
so!"

Question: "Have you two names, and
does each begin with a P?"

Answer (third time): "I should think so!"

Question: "I charge you to lay aside this
levity, and inform me what you are called."

The spirit, after reflecting for a few seconds,
spelt out P. O. R. K. The musical instrument
then performed a short and fragmentary
strain. The spirit then recommenced, and
spelt out the word "P. I. E."

Now, this precise article of pastry, this
particular viand or comestible, actually had
formed—let the scoffer know—the staple of
the writer's lunch, and actually had been
handed to him by the young lady whom he
now knew to be a powerful Medium! Highly
gratified by the conviction thus forced upon
his mind that the knowledge with which he
conversed was not of this world, the writer
pursued the dialogue.

Question: "They call you Pork Pie?"

Answer: "Yes."

Question (which the writer timidly put,