Psychic CEO Buys Dickens' Desk for $860K

An Irish millionaire has humble plans for Charles Dickens's writing desk and chair, which he bought at a charity auction on Wednesday.

Tom Higgins, CEO of a company that gives live tarot card and psychic readings online and via cellphones, said he simply plans to write letters at the desk.

"I don't think I'll write anything more in depth than that or try to lift the spirit of Charles Dickens from the desk. But you never know — there might be some spirit left in it for me," Higgins, a self-described Dickens fan, said after his successful bid of the equivalent of nearly $860,000 Cdn at the Christie's auction on Wednesday.

The mahogany desk and walnut chair, which Dickens used while writing Great Expectations at his country home in southern England, were among the lots sold to raise money for London's Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital.