were sadly faded by long use.

Having taken suitable apartments, the black servants were sent round the
town, blowing trumpets and delivering bills, announcing their master's
astonishing performances, which in the day time consisted in displaying
the wonders of the microscope, &c. and in the evening in exhibiting
electrical experiments, in the course of which he introduced his two
celebrated black cats, generally denominated the Doctor's Devils--for,
be it understood, that our hero went under the dignified style and
title of _Doctor_ Katerfelto. Tricks of legerdemain concluded the
evening's entertainments.

The first night of the Doctor's performance was extremely wet, and the
writer of this, who was then quite a boy, composed his whole audience.
The Doctor's spouse invited me behind the curtains to the fire, on one
side of which sat the great conjuror himself, his person being enveloped
in an old green, greasy roquelaire, and his head decorated with a black
velvet cap. On the other side of the fire-place sat Mrs. Katerfelto and
daughter, in a corresponding style of dress--that is to say, equally
ancient and uncleanly. The family appeared, indeed, to be in distressed
circumstances. The Doctor told me the following odd anecdote:--Some time
before he had sent up from a town in Yorkshire a fire-balloon, for the
amusement of the country people, and at which they were not a little
astonished; but in a few days afterwards the Doctor was himself more
astonished on being arrested for having set fire to a hay rick! The
balloon, it appeared, had in its descent fallen upon a rick, which it
consumed, and the owner, having ascertained by whom the combustible
material had been dispatched, arrested the doctor for the damage. As the
Doctor was unable to pay the amount, he was obliged to go to prison,
thus proving that it is sometimes easier to raise the devil than to