In spite of this reinforcement, however, M. A. persisted in attempts to engage my attention. On one occasion, he invited me to “try a little change” and talk to him. On another, he asked me to let him write, as he had “a long story to tell” about my husband, who was out of town. Again, he assured me that I had disappointed “them,” that “they” felt that I had failed as a messenger, and that Mary K. had departed permanently. Still again, when confusion seemed to have overtaken the book project, he declared, quite frankly: “We have stopped you now. M. A.” No longer troubled by these intrusions, however, I never permitted him to use the pencil after his identity had been discovered. Occasionally I was deceived for a moment, and not infrequently it was his failure to complete a sentence or a word that betrayed him. “He defeats himself by his fear, like all cowards,” Mary K. said, one day, and when I mentioned that his messages lacked continuity, she returned: “No coward is consecutive. How could he be?” These were by no means the last of the encounters with Matthew. Mr. Kendal arrived on the 7th of May, and a night or two later, when several of those interested in these communications were together, M. A. made his appearance again. For some time his initials followed every attempt to establish communication with our invisible friends, but eventually we obtained Mary Kendal’s clear signature, and a message, slowly written, with frequent pauses, during which the personality striving to oppose her was gradually overcome. M. A.’s erratic touch was occasionally evident, lessening in strength as Mary’s steady, gentle control increased. “Come on,” she said, finally. “We are ready for a little fun now, and we will leave the more serious matters until we have more truly a clear field.” Accordingly, we abandoned our intended inquiry, for the moment, resorting to persiflage, in which she took an active part, writing with increased fluency. “Laughter is a constructive force, children,” she told us, when things were going smoothly again. “Remember that when you fight fiends.... If we keep our touch close, and laugh like that, with real mirth, they can’t get in.” Later that evening, Anne Lowe came for a moment, just to tell us, she said, that we had made a step in learning what laughter that is from the heart will do. “It is protective, constructive, curative, and the devil for devils. They can’t get over, or around, or through it. That’s your best weapon and your best protection, aside from fundamental purposes. Use it, and more power to your—what is it you laugh with? Diaphragm, or what?” The next night, when conditions were normal from the first, we asked Mary Kendal about this incident, and she said: “It was just a massed attack, which will occur from time to time. They will fight as long as they exist, but the virulence and violence of their present efforts is due to our united attack on them.”