"That very night Mr. Devlin come down to this room, without 'with your leave or by your leave,' where Lemon and me was setting, having our regular game of cribbage for a ha'penny a game, and droring a chair up to the table, he begun to talk as though he'd known us all his life. And he can talk, sir, by the hour, and it never seens to tire him, whatever it does with other people. Lemon was took with him, and couldn't keep his eyes off him. No more could I, sir. No more could you if he was here. You might try your hardest, but it wouldn't be a bit of good. There's something in him as forces you to look at him--just as there's something in that bird, and the stone figger on the mantelshelf, and Lemon's portrait as forces you to look at them. I've found out the reason of that. When Devlin ain't here he leaves his sperrit behind him--that's how it is. I was never frightened of the dark before he come into the house, but now the very thought of going into a room of a night without a candle makes me shiver. And many and many's the time as I've been going up-stairs that I've turned that faint there's no describing. He's been behind me, sir, coming up after me, step by step. I can't see him, I can't hear him, but I feel him; and yet there ain't a soul in sight but me. At them times I'm frightened to look at the wall for fear of seeing his shadder.
"Well, sir, on the night that he come into this parlour he goes on talking and talking, and then proposes a hand at cribbage, which Lemon was only too glad to say yes to.
"'Mrs. Lemon must play,' said Devlin; 'we'll have a three-handed game.'
"I shouldn't have minded being left out, especially as our cribbage-board only pegs for two, but his word was lore. So we begun to play, and Devlin marks his score with a red pencil.
"The things he did while we played made my flesh creep. He threw out his card for crib without looking at it, and told us how much was in crib while the cards was laying backs up on the table; and when Lemon and me, both of us slow counters, began to reckon what we had in our hands, Mr. Devlin, like a flash of lightning, cried out how many we was to take. We played five games, and he won 'em all. Then he said he'd show us some tricks. Sir, the like of them tricks was never seen before or since. I've seen conjurers in my time, but not one who could hold a candle to Mr. Devlin. He made the cards fly all over the room, and while he held the pack in his hand and you was looking at 'em, they'd disappear before your very eyes.
"'Where would you like 'em to be?' he asked. 'Underneath you, on your chair? Git up; you're sitting on 'em. In your workbox? Open it and behold 'em.'
"And there they was, sir, sure enough, underneath me, though I'd never stirred from my seat, or in my workbox, which was at the other end of the room. It wasn't conjuring, sir, it was something I can't put a name to, and it wasn't natural. I could hardly move for fright, and as I looked at Mr. Devlin, he seemed to grow taller and thinner, and his black eyes become blacker, and his moustaches curled up to his nose till they as good as met. But Lemon didn't feel as I felt; he was that delighted that he kep on crying--
"'Wonderful! Beautiful! Do it agin, Mr. Devlin, do it agin. Show us another.'
"I don't know when I've seen him so excited; that Devlin had bewitched him.
"'We're brothers you and me,' said Devlin to him. 'I am yours, and you are mine, and we'll never part.'