Wattles divined that this signified something in connection with Hyatt, and that “the fish was no good.”
As I finished reading the horoscopes the tom cat Scorpio returned through the hole in the door and crawled under the stove with a chipmunk he had caught in the woods.
“That crystal was at one time in India,” explained Wattles, as he placed the horoscopes between the leaves of a big book. “The Buddhists used it, and it was stolen by a desecrater of a temple, who fled to Italy. There it was used by a great astrologer and magician for over fifty years. From Italy it went to England and into the possession of the world renowned Zadkiel. After that it went to New York by inheritance. I bought it from a man in Cincinnati for two dollars. He did not know what it was, but I did, for it was fully described in some books I have. I believe it to be the celebrated Lady Blessington crystal that was exhibited in London before all the nobility in 1850. I will show you how it works.”
He placed the crystal on the window ledge, and into a little pan, between it and the light, he poured some gray powder from a wide mouthed bottle. He lighted the powder and a pale yellow smoke ascended. He then covered his head and half of the globe with a black cloth, as one would do in focussing a camera. In this way all light was excluded except that which passed through the smoke and crystal into the darkened space under the cloth.
“I am not expecting to see any visions now,” he continued, “but for all that there may be one there.” He was silent for some time and then asked me to look.
I carefully adjusted the cloth and gazed upon the luminous orb. Owing to the wreaths of smoke on the other side of the globe, there were weird filmy changes in the field of light. A dark indistinct form seemed to wander in the dim depths of the crystal. The movement ceased near the center.
I told Wattles what had happened, and asked him to interpret it, but he made no reply. I withdrew the cloth and found that the mysterious apparition had been produced by the blurred magnification of the silhouette of a blue bottle fly that was crawling about on the light side of the crystal.
Wattles said, in a regretful, kindly tone, that the influences were not quite right for the visions. He had found by the test that I was a skeptic, and, when looked into by unbelievers, the crystal remained clouded and never “visualized.” I accepted the explanation humbly.
“Now,” said he, “I want you to see my observatory.” He took a long marine spy glass from behind the books on the shelf and we ascended a rickety ladder to a trap door in the roof, by means of which we reached an enclosed platform over the house.
“By get’n’ up here I command a better horizon than I would from the ground,” he explained, as he adjusted the spy glass into the top of some revolving frame work. From the low seat near it he could inspect the heavens to his heart’s content. Through the glass I scrutinized a flock of turbulent crows around some tree tops beyond the river a mile or so away, and it appeared to be an excellent instrument of its kind.