That was an unfortunate speech. One by one the movers withdrew their hands, until at last Mr. Lamb was left alone standing by the table in the middle of the room. In great confusion, he retired, and very soon the company dispersed.
That was the climax of the table-moving mania in Westbridge. What might have happened, if we had gone on, cannot be conjectured. We might all have been hearing mysterious rappings, and conversing with those most earthy spirits, whose utter barrenness and poverty of intellect have not hindered them from misleading some of our thoughtful and earnest minds.
The very day after Mrs. Dutton's soirée, Professor Faraday's exposition of the whole jugglery came out, and even the "Westbridge Chronicle" had the barbarity to publish it, "for the benefit," it said, "of some of its readers," when everybody in Westbridge knew that the editor had piqued himself on the possession of more electricity than any one else in town. The subject of table-moving is now a forbidden one in Westbridge. I have not heard an allusion to it for the last six month.
Yet, I fancy, it has produced some results; for Edith's two aunts, who were wont to delight in the most severe strictures on the young men of the present day, now make, in their sweeping assertions, a marked exception in favor of Mr. Reginald Archer.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR MAKING ORNAMENTS IN RICE SHELL-WORK.
[THIRD AND CONCLUDING ARTICLE.]
BASKET IN RICE SHELL-WORK.