And yet, if one went to a nerve specialist or doctor about all this, as he did afterward, what did the doctor say? He had tried to describe how he was breaking down under the strain, how he could not eat or sleep on account of all these constant tappings and noises; but the moment he even began to hint at his experiences, especially the hand or the noises, the doctor exclaimed: “Why, this is plain delusion! You’re nervously run down, that’s all that ails you—on the verge of pernicious anemia, I should say. You’ll have to watch yourself as to this illusion about spirits. Get it out of your mind. There’s nothing to it!” Wasn’t that just like one of these nerve specialists, bound up in their little ideas of what they knew or saw, or thought they saw? VII—NOVEMBER, 1907 And now take this very latest development at Battle Creek recently where he had gone trying to recuperate on the diet there. Hadn’t Mersereau, implacable demon that he was, developed this latest trick of making his food taste queer to him—unpalatable, or with an odd odor? He, Davidson, knew it was Mersereau, for he felt him beside him at the table whenever he sat down. Besides, he seemed to hear something—clairaudience was what they called it, he understood—he was beginning to develop that, too, now! It was Mersereau, of course, saying in a voice which was more like a memory of a voice than anything real—the voice of some one you could remember as having spoken in a certain way, say, ten years or more ago: * * * * * “_I’ve fixed it so you can’t eat any more, you—_” * * * * * There followed a long list of vile expletives, enough in itself to sicken one. Thereafter, in spite of anything he could do to make himself think to the contrary, knowing that the food was all right, really, Davidson found it to have an odor or a taste which disgusted him, and which he could not overcome, try as he would. The management assured him that it was all right, as he knew it was—for others. He saw them eating it. But he couldn’t—had to get up and leave, and the little he could get down he couldn’t retain, or it wasn’t enough for him to live on. God, he would die, this way! Starve, as he surely was doing by degrees now. And Mersereau always seeming to be standing by. Why, if it weren’t for fresh fruit on the stands at times, and just plain, fresh-baked bread in bakers’ windows, which he could buy and eat quickly, he might not be able to live at all. It was getting to that pass! VIII—AUGUST, 1908