He will think of some word--no matter if it is meaningless. What you have to do is, not to doubt, but take it down. One word might be much more valuable than a long oration. One word would do, no matter how silly it sounded; even if it is only a jumble, so long as it is the same jumble. He is jumping now. [Meaning, he is pleased with the idea.] He says he finds it difficult owing to the medium. He is not able to get through all he wants to say, but on the whole thinks he got it pretty straight to-night. [The quickness with which the communicator jumped at the idea of a cross-correspondence was notable, because I do not think he had known anything about them. It sounded rather like the result of rapid Myersian instruction. I rather doubt if cross-correspondences of this kind can be got through Mrs. Kennedy, though she knows we are going to try for them. The boys are quite willing to take down any jumble, but she herself likes to understand what she gets, and automatically rejects gibberish.--O. J. L.] * * * * * On 13 October, through the kind arrangement of Mrs. Kennedy, we had an anonymous sitting with a medium new to us, a Mrs. Brittain, of Hanley, Staffordshire, in Mrs. Kennedy's house. It was not very successful--the medium seemed tired and worried--but there were a few evidential points obtained, though little or nothing about the boy; in the waking stage, however, she said that some one was calling the name 'Raymond.' At an interview next day with Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. Brittain said that a boy named 'Pat' had come with Paul to see her on the evening after the sitting (see p. 148 for the significance of 'Pat'); and she described it in writing to Mrs. Kennedy thus:-- 14 _October_ 1915 "I was just resting, thinking over the events of the day, and worrying just a little about my ordeal of next Monday, when I became conscious of the presence of such a dear soldier boy. He said, 'I am Pat, and oh, I did want to speak to my mother.' Then I saw with him your dear boy [Paul]; he asked me to tell you about Pat, and to give the message to his father that he would get proof without seeking it." [Footnote 19: Mrs. Kennedy's name is Katherine, and Feda usually speaks of her as Mrs. Kathie.] [Footnote 20: This corresponds with an early statement made by "Myers" through Mrs. Thompson. See _Proceedings_, S.P.R., vol. xxiii. p. 221.] CHAPTER XI FIRST SITTING OF ALEC (A. M. L.) _Introduction by O. J. L._ A word may be necessary about the attitude of Raymond's family to the whole subject. It may be thought that my own known interest in the subject was naturally shared by the family, but that is not so. So far as I can judge, it had rather the opposite effect; and not until they had received unmistakable proof, devised largely by themselves, was this healthy scepticism ultimately broken down.