"Exacting rubbish!" exclaimed Mrs Masterman impatiently; "I can't stand all that bosh about higher powers, and developing magnetism. Of course there are a set of people who'd believe anything that seemed to give them a superior organisation; it's only another way of pandering to human vanity. Spiritualism is perfect rubbish. I've seen and heard enough of it to know. I once held a _seance_ at my house, just to convince myself as to its being a trick or not, I was told that the medium could materialise spirit forms. I, of course, asked some people to meet him, and we selected a room and put him behind a screen as he desired, and there we all sat in the dark, like so many fools, for about half-an-hour.--" "Well," interposed Mrs Jefferson eagerly, "and did you have any manifestation?" "Oh, yes," laughed the gouty sufferer grimly, "a very material one indeed. By some accident the medium knocked down the screen just after we'd seen a spirit face floating _above_ it. In the confusion some one struck a light, and there was our medium--standing on the chair without his coat, and wrapping some transparent India muslin about himself, which had been dipped in phosphorus I believe, so that it gave out a curious shimmering light in the dark. You may suppose I never went in for materialistic _seances_ again." "Still," said Mrs Jefferson, "although you may have been tricked, it doesn't stand to reason that spiritualism _is_ trickery. I've come from the very core and centre of it--so to speak. I've been at more _seances_ than I could count, and I've seen tests applied that _prove_ the manifestations are genuine. Still there are heaps of professional mediums who are not to be depended on, I grant. If you want to know the truth of spiritualism, you can always work it out for yourself. That's quite possible, only it's a deal of trouble." "I don't believe in it," reiterated Mrs Masterman stubbornly. "All mediums are cheats and humbugs." "Oh!" said Mrs Jefferson. "If it comes to exceptions laying down the rule, where are we? The other day a clergyman was taken before the courts for drunkenness, but I suppose you're not going to say all clergymen are drunkards. A doctor poisoned a patient by mistake, but surely we're not to class our dear medical men as poisoners and murderers on that account. It's just the same with any abnormal or extraordinary facts that set up a new theory for investigation. Impostors are sure to creep in, and the lazy and the indifferent and the sceptical call their exposure `results.' Depend on it we don't half investigate subjects now-a-days, and we suffer for it by giving place and opportunity for the development of a certain class of beings who prey on our credulity, and make profit out of our indolence and superstition." "There's something in spiritualism, you bet," drawled the nasal voice of Mr Ray Jefferson. "I've had messages written to me, and things said that no third person could possibly have known about."