patient gets well while you are electrifying
him. Whether or not the electricity cured

him is a thing I shall never know. If, however,
he began to show signs of impatience, I

advised him that he would require a year's
treatment, and suggested that it would be

economical for him to buy a battery and use
it at home. Thus advised, he pays you twenty

dollars for an instrument which cost you ten,
and you are rid of a troublesome case.

If the reader has followed me closely, he
will have learned that I am a man of large

and liberal views in my profession, and of a
very justifiable ambition. The idea has often

occurred to me of combining in one establishment
all the various modes of practice which

are known as irregular. This, as will be
understood, is really only a wider application

of the idea which prompted me to unite in my
own business homeopathy and the practice of

medicine. I proposed to my partner, accordingly,
to combine with our present business

that of spiritualism, which I knew had been
very profitably turned to account in connection

with medical practice. As soon as he
agreed to this plan, which, by the way, I hoped

to enlarge so as to include all the available
isms, I set about making such preparations as

were necessary. I remembered having read
somewhere that a Dr. Schiff had shown that

he could produce remarkable ``knockings,'' so
called, by voluntarily dislocating the great

toe and then forciblydrawing it back into its
socket. A still better noise could be made by

throwing the tendon of the peroneus longus
muscle out of the hollow in which it lies,

alongside of the ankle. After some effort I
was able to accomplish both feats quite readily,

and could occasion a remarkablevariety of
sounds, according to the power which I

employed or the positions which I occupied at
the time. As to all other matters, I trusted

to the suggestions of my own ingenuity,
which, as a rule, has rarely failed me.

The largest success attended the novel plan
which my lucky genius had devised, so that

soon we actually began to divide large profits
and to lay by a portion of our savings. It is,

of course, not to be supposed that this desirable
result was attained without many annoyances

and some positive danger. My spiritual
revelations, medical and other, were, as may

be supposed, only more or less happy guesses;
but in this, as in predictions as to the weather

and other events, the rare successes always
get more prominence in the minds of men

than the numerous failures. Moreover,
whenever a person has been fool enough to

resort to folks like myself, he is always glad
to be able to defend his conduct by bringing

forward every possible proof of skill on the
part of the men he has consulted. These

considerations, and a certain love of mysterious
or unusual means, I have commonly found

sufficient to secure an ample share of gullible
individuals. I may add, too, that those who

would be shrewd enough to understand and
expose us are wise enough to keep away

altogether. Such as did come were, as a rule,
easy enough to manage, but now and then we

hit upon some utterly exceptional patient
who was both foolish enough to consult us

and sharp enough to know he had been swindled.
When such a fellow made a fuss, it

was occasionally necessary to return his
money if it was found impossible to bully

him into silence. In one or two instances,
where I had promised a cure upon prepayment

of two or three hundred dollars, I was either
sued or threatened with suit, and had to

refund a part or the whole of the amount; but
most people preferred to hold their tongues

rather than expose to the world the extent of
their own folly.

In one most disastrous case I suffered
personally to a degree which I never can recall

without a distinct sense of annoyance, both
at my own want of care and at the disgusting

consequences which it brought upon me.
Early one morning an old gentleman called,

in a state of the utmostagitation, and
explained that he desired to consult the spirits

as to a heavy loss which he had experienced
the night before. He had left, he said, a sum

of money in his pantaloons pocket upon going
to bed. In the morning he had changed his

clothes and gone out, forgetting to remove the
notes. Returning in an hour in great haste,

he discovered that the garment still lay upon
the chair where he had thrown it, but that the

money was missing. I at once desired him to
be seated, and proceeded to ask him certain

questions, in a chatty way, about the habits
of his household, the amount lost, and the like,

expecting thus to get some clue which would
enable me to make my spirits display the

requisite share of sagacity in pointing out the
thief. I learnedreadily that he was an old

and wealthy man, a little close, too, I suspected,
and that he lived in a large house with but

two servants, and an only son about twenty-
one years old. The servants were both women

who had lived in the household many years,
and were probably innocent. Unluckily,

remembering my own youthfulcareer, I
presently reached the conclusion that the young

man had been the delinquent. When I ventured
to inquire a little as to his habits, the

old gentleman cut me very short, remarking
that he came to ask questions, and not to be

questioned, and that he desired at once to
consult the spirits. Upon this I sat down at

a table, and, after a brief silence, demanded
in a solemn voice if there were any spirits

present. By industriously cracking my big
toe-joint I was enabled to represent at once