“Nor that. That is too monotonous.”
The fourth guest said nothing, but continued quietly emptying his glass.
“What is your opinion?” asked the others.
“I have no opinion to give,” said he; “but I should like to tell you about the sounds I heard in Pekin. They seem to me to be much superior to any others. They were the different noises emitted by a ventriloquist. He was seated behind a screen, where there was only a chair, a table, and a fan, and a ruler. He rapped the ruler on the table to enforce silence, and, when everybody had ceased speaking, there was suddenly heard the barking of a dog; then the movements of a woman, waked by the noisy brute, who shook her husband to say tender things to him. We were just expecting to hear a duet of love between the two spouses when the noise of a crying child was heard. Then we heard the mother giving the breast to the baby, and the sound of it drinking and crying at the same time. The mother tried to console it, and then rose to change its clothes. Meanwhile, another child, waking in its bed, began to make a noise; its father scolded it, whilst the younger child continued crying at its mother’s breast. Then the whole family go back to bed and fall asleep. The patter of a mouse is heard. It climbs up some vase and upsets it, and we hear the clatter as it falls. The woman coughs in her sleep. Cries of ‘Fire, fire,’ are heard. The mouse has upset the lamp, and set fire to the bed-curtains. The husband and the wife, wakened, begin to shout and scream, the children cry, thousands of people come running up, and vociferate; thousands of children cry, dogs bark, the walls come crashing down, squibs and crackers explode—it seems a general sauve-qui-peut. The fire-brigade comes racing up; water is pumped up in torrents, and hisses in the flames. It was all so true to life that all present were about to rise to their feet and run away, thinking that fire really had broken out, when a second blow of the ruler was struck on the table, and the most complete silence ensued. We rushed behind the screen, but there was nothing except the ventriloquist, his table, his chair, and his ruler.”
CHAPTER XXX
THE EVOCATION OF SPIRITS
