Some said there must be a confederacy between the challenger and the challenged, and others asked whether any money had been deposited?
The fire-king called a Mr.White forward, who deposed that he held the stakes, which had been regularly placed in his hands, by both parties, before twelve o'clock that morning.
The fire-king here turned round with great exultation to the company, and pulling a bottle out of his pocket, exclaimed, "I did never see this gentleman before this morning, and I did not know but that he might be bold enough to venture to take this quantity of poison.

I was determined not to let him lose his life by his foolish wager, and therefore I did bring an antidote in my pocket, which would have prevented him from suffering any harm." Mr.Smith said his object was answered by seeing twenty grains of genuine phosphorus swallowed.

He had conceived it impossible, as three grains were quite sufficient to destroy life.

The fire-king then withdrew into another room for the professed purpose of putting on his usual dress for entering the oven, but in all probability for the purpose of getting the phosphorus out of his stomach.
After an absence of twenty minutes, he returned, dressed in a coarse woolen coat, to enter the heated oven.

Before he entered it, a medical gentleman ascertained that his pulse was vibrating ninety-eight times a minute.