Mr. Balfour, however, believes that in the sequel we have fair evidence of spirit communication. The reader who is not familiar with these matters should know that a new test had been devised for controlling the origin of these messages. It was felt that if the "spirit" of one of the dead psychical researchers (who could no longer read or remember the sealed messages they had left) were to give an unintelligible message to one medium, a second unintelligible message to a second medium, and then the key to both to either or to a third medium, and if the contents of these messages were strictly withheld from the mediums (each knowing only her own part), a very definite proof of spirit origin would be afforded. Thus the ghost of Mr. Verrall or Mr. Myers might take a line of an obscure Greek poet, give one word of it to Mrs. Thompson, another to Mrs. Willett, and then point out the connection through Mrs. Verrall. Mr. Balfour claims that this was done in connection with the Ear of Dionysius. Mrs. Willett, who does not know Latin or Greek, got messages containing a number of classical allusions. Among them was one which no one could understand, and the key to this was some time afterwards given in the automatic writing of Mrs. Verrall. The reader will now begin to understand the serious and respectable part of modern Spiritualism. I presume that these cultivated Spiritualists regard the "physical phenomena" of the movement and the ordinary mediums with the same contempt that I do. They know that fraud is being perpetrated daily, and that the history of the movement, since its beginning in 1848, has reeked with fraud. It is on these refined messages and cross-references that they would stake their faith. But, while we readily grant that these things offer an arguable case and must not be dismissed with the disdain which we have shown in the previous chapters, we feel that the new basis is altogether insecure and inadequate. Two mediums get a reference to so remote and unlikely a thing as "the Ear of Dionysius." When you put it in this simple form it sounds impressive; but we saw that there was an interval of three and a-half years, and we do not feel at all sure that people so profoundly interested, so religiously eager, in these matters would succeed in keeping the first communication entirely from the ears of medium No. 2. In point of fact, Mr. Balfour tells us that he has a distinct recollection of being asked by Mrs. Willett, during the interval, what the Ear of Dionysius was. Mrs. Willett denies it. We shall probably prefer the disinterested memory of Mr. Balfour. Now, the very same weakness is found even in the second part of the story. For any evidential value it rests on two very large suppositions:-- 1. That one medium knew absolutely nothing about the most interesting and promising development which was for months agitating the minds of her own friends.