The sense of humor in me has never been converted, and there were occasions when it was best for me not to be too literally present when William was examining the spiritual condition of some puzzled soul. He had risen and provided her with a chair and sat down opposite, regarding her with a hospitable blue beam in his eyes. She had the fatal facility for innocuous expression common to her class. All the time I knew William was waiting like an experienced fisherman for a chance to swing his net on her side of the boat. The poor man did not dream that she was one of those unfortunate persons who has swapped her real soul for a Hindu vagary. But presently she let it out. "Mr. Thompson," she continued, without a rhetorical pause to indicate the decimal points between her thoughts, "I was interested in what you said about immortality last Sunday. Now, I wonder if you know it is an actual fact that by breathing rhythmically thirty times, counting three while you inhale, three while you exhale and three while you hold your breath, you can actually get into touch at once with your astral shape?" William fumbled in his pocket for his glasses, deliberately put them on and then regarded her over the steel rims. I could see the Jehovah crest of his spirit erect itself as he replied with divine dignity: "Madam, I do not know what you mean by your astral shape, but I do not have to pant like a lizard to keep in touch with my soul!" But she bore with him, showing far more calmness than he as she went on to describe the wonderful power of spirit she had developed. She had even gone so far, she said, as a matter of experiment, to "put her thought" upon the unborn child of a friend, and when the child came it was not like its own mother or father, but her exact image. Now, she declared, she was sure it was her own "thought" child. And what was more convincing still, she had at last attained to a "sky-blue aura"--she added this with an indescribable air of triumph. William tightened his spectacles on his nose, drew his face close and stared at her with the sort of scandalized sunsmile Moses must have worn the first time he caught sight of the golden calf. "Madam," he exclaimed after a dreadful inquisitive silence, "I can see no signs of an aura, either blue or otherwise; but if you actually did try to steal another woman's child with your thoughts you have been guilty of an unimaginable meanness, and you should go down on your knees to Almighty God for forgiveness!"