"I don't want to be disappointed in the Hannibal girl. I have been trying for several years to get through to the light. I don't want a false sentiment for a crew of fanatics to wreck my chance. I don't want to act nasty, but if you go into that other work I am likely to ruin your reputation. You are likely to explode into some of the mediocre piffle that is the height and depth of such would-be communications with the other world. There is nothing to hold to. So, my dear girls, if you want a future, cut it out. I don't want to command all your time, but right now it is best to avoid all complications." It is needless to say I declined the invitation. After this, whenever anything went wrong, the rebuke or complaint was invariably addressed to me. When there were humorous or pleasant things to be said, they were dispensed equally to the three of us, whom Mark Twain had come to designate as "my office force." Two bits of personal communication came within the succeeding week which seem to have a bearing on the whole mysterious experience. That second installment was undertaken and abandoned again and again. Finally he said: "I am going ahead with the main body of the story. There will be another round with that second chapter, but not until the theme is fully developed. The second chapter sticks in my throat like the cockleburr that I tried to swallow when I was five. It won't slip down or come up." We had worked patiently on the latter part of the narrative and had accomplished a big evening's work, when the dictation was interrupted by this remark: "It is going good; but I sure wish that I had Edwin's pipe." We fairly gasped with astonishment; but we had no time for comment, as the planchette continued its amazing revelation: "Smoke up, old man, for auld lang syne. In the other world they don't know Walter Raleigh's weed, and I have not found Walter yet to make complaint. I forget about it till I get Edwin's smoke. But for pity's sake, Ed, cut out that tobacco you were trying out. It made me sick. I hoped it would get you, so that you wouldn't try it again." My husband; whom neither Mrs. Hays nor I would, under any circumstances, address by the abbreviation of his name, "Ed," asked Mark what tobacco he had in mind. He replied: "That packet you were substituting, or that some one that had a grudge against you gave you."