In accordance with Phadrig's request, they made a triangle of which he was the central point. Without any formula of introduction, he said rather abruptly: "Professor van Huysman, will you oblige me by taking a croquet ball and holding it in your hand as tightly as you can?" Brenda ran out of the circle and gave him one. He took it and gripped it in a fist that looked made to hold things. Phadrig glanced at the ball, and said quietly: "Follow me!" Then he turned away, and, in spite of all the Professor's efforts to hold it, the ball somehow slipped through his fingers and fell on to the lawn. Then, to the utter amazement of every one, except Franklin Marmion, it rolled towards the Adept and followed him at a distance of about three yards as he walked round the circle of spectators. He did not even look at it. When he had made the round, he took his place in the Triangle of Science, and the ball stopped at his feet. "It is now released, Professor," he said to Van Huysman. "You may take it away, if you wish." There was something in the saying of the last sentence that nettled him. He had seen all, or nearly all, the physical laws, which were to him as the Credo is to a Catholic or the Profession of Faith to a Moslem, openly and shamelessly outraged, defied, and set at nought. To say he was angry would be to give a very inadequate idea of his feelings, because he, the greatest exposer of Spiritualism, Dowieism, and Christian Scientism in the United States, was not only angry, but--for the time being only, as he hoped--utterly bewildered. It was too much, as he would have put it, to take lying down, and so, greatly daring, he took a couple of strides towards Phadrig, and said with a snarl in his voice: "I guess you mean really if _you_ wish, Mr Miracle-Worker. It was mighty clever, however you did it, but you haven't got me to believe that physical laws are frauds yet. You want me to pick that ball up?" "Certainly, Professor--if you can--now," replied Phadrig, with a little twitch of his lips which might have been a smile, or something else. Hoskins van Huysman was a strong man, and he knew it. Not very many years before, he had been able to shoulder a sack of flour and take it away at a run, and now he could bend a poker across his shoulders without much trouble. He stooped down and gripped the ball, expecting, of course, to lift it quite easily. It didn't move. He put more force into his arms and tried again. For "all the move he got on it," as he said afterwards, it might have weighed a ton. It was ridiculous, but it was a fact. In spite of all his pulling and straining, the ball remained where it was as though it had been rooted in the foundations of the world. He was wise enough to know when he was beaten, so he let go, and when he pulled himself up, somewhat flushed after his exertions, he said: