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And, besides, he offered me something which in fact I wanted. I am a member of a society for psychical research, which, about a year before, had been organized in our town. It is composed almost exclusively of persons who are desirous of honestly investigating the facts, as well as theories, connected with the spiritual phenomena, not only of our own day, but of all ages. We had heard of the spiritualistic exhibitions which were to be given in our town, and I, with a number of my fellow-members, had determined to attend them. If there was anything real or tangible in the performances of these people we wanted to know it. Considering all this, it would be foolish for me to be angry with a man who had brought me the very tickets I intended to buy, and, instead of turning away from him, I took out my pocket-book.

“I will take one ticket for each of the three seances,” I said. And I placed the money on the table.

I should have been glad to buy two sets of tickets; one for my wife; but I knew this would be useless. She did not belong to our society, and took no interest in its investigations.

“These things are all tricks and nonsense,” she said. “I don’t want to know anything about them. And if they were true, I most certainly would not want to know anything about them.”

So I contented myself with the tickets for my own use, and as the man slowly selected them from his little package, I asked him if he had sold many of them.

“These you now buy are the first of which I have made disposal,” he answered. “For two days I have endeavored to sell them, but to no purpose. There are many people to whom I cannot bring myself to speak upon the matter, and those I have asked care not for these things. I would not have come to you, but having twice passed your open window, I liked your face and took courage.”

I smiled. So this man had been studying me before I began to study him; and this discovery revived in me the desire that he had come on some more interesting business than that of selling tickets; a thing he did so badly as to make me wonder why he had undertaken it.

“I imagine,” said I, “that this sort of business is out of your line.”

He looked at me a moment, and then with earnestness exclaimed: “Entirely! utterly! absolutely! I am altogether unfitted for this calling, and it is an injustice to those who send me out for me to longer continue in it. Some other person might sell their tickets; I cannot. And yet,” he said, with a sigh, “what is there that I may do?”

The idea that that strong, well-grown man should have any difficulty in finding something to do surprised me. If he chose to go out and labor with his hands–and surely no man who was willing to wander about selling tickets should object to that–there would be no difficulty in his obtaining a livelihood in our town.

“If you want regular employment,” I said, “I think you can easily find it.”

“I want it,” he answered, his face clouded by a troubled expression, “but I cannot take it.”

“Cannot take it!” I exclaimed.

“No,” he said, “I am not my own master. I am as much a slave as any negro hereabouts!”

I was rather surprised at this meaningless allusion, but contented myself with asking him what he meant by not being his own master.

He looked on the floor and then he looked at me, with a steady, earnest gaze. “I should like well to tell you my story,” he said. “I have been ordered not to tell it, but I have resolved that when I should meet a man to whom I should be moved to speak I would speak.”