Now if there is one thing that the hypnotist, the believer in unexplained influences, detests and despises, it is the whole root-notion of spiritualism. Drugs are not more opposed to his belief than the exploded, discredited idea of the influence of spirits on our lives. And both are discredited for the same reason; it is easy to understand how brain can act on brain, just as it is easy to understand how body can act on body, so that there is no more difficulty in the reception of the idea that the strong mind can direct the weak one, than there is in the fact of a wrestler of greater strength overcoming one of less. But that spirits should rap at furniture and divert the course of events is as absurd as administering phosphorus to strengthen the brain. That was what I thought then. However, I felt sure it was the postman, and instantly rose and went to the door. There were no letters in the box, and I opened the door. The postman was just ascending the steps. He gave the letters into my hand. Louis was sipping his coffee when I came back to the table. ‘Have you ever tried table-turning?’ he asked. ‘It’s rather odd.’ ‘No, and I have not tried violet-leaves as a cure for cancer,’ I said. ‘Oh, try everything,’ he said. ‘I know that that is your plan, just as it is mine. All these years that you have been away, you have tried all sorts of things, first with no faith, then with just a little faith, and finally with mountain-moving faith. Why, you didn’t believe in hypnotism at all when you went to Paris.’ He rang the bell as he spoke, and his servant came up and cleared the table. While this was being done we strolled about the room, looking at prints, with applause for a Bartolozzi that Louis had bought in the New Cut, and dead silence over a ‘Perdita’ which he had acquired at considerable cost. Then he sat down again at the table on which we had dined. It was round, and mahogany-heavy, with a central foot divided into claws. ‘Try its weight,’ he said; ‘see if you can push it about.’ So I held the edge of it in my hands, and found that I could just move it. But that was all; it required the exercise of a good deal of strength to stir it. ‘Now put your hands on the top of it,’ he said, ‘and see what you can do.’ I could not do anything, my fingers merely slipped about on it. But I protested at the idea of spending the evening thus. ‘I would much sooner play chess or noughts and crosses with you,’ I said, ‘or even talk about politics, than turn tables. You won’t mean to push, nor shall I, but we shall push without meaning to.’ Louis nodded. ‘Just a minute,’ he said, ‘let us both put our fingers only on the top of the table and push for all we are worth, from right to left.’ We pushed. At least I pushed, and I observed his finger-nails. From pink they grew to white, because of the pressure he exercised. So I must assume that he pushed too. Once, as we tried this, the table creaked. But it did not move.