“No,” I answered, “to be quite candid, I have not.”
Neither of us spoke for perhaps twenty minutes after this, when my Friend said:
“Have you anything against it?”
I thought awhile and then I said:
“Yes, I have.”
My Friend remained silent for perhaps half an hour. Then he asked:
“What?”
I meditated for some time. Then I said:
“This—it seems to me that the whole thing is done for money. How utterly unnatural it is to call up the dead—one’s great-grand-father, let us say—and pay money for talking to him.”
“Precisely,” said my Friend without a moment’s pause. “I thought so. Now suppose I could bring you into contact with the spirit world through a medium, or through different medii, without there being any question of money, other than a merely nominal fee, the money being, as it were, left out of count, and regarded as only, so to speak, nominal, something given merely pro forma and ad interim. Under these circumstances, will you try the experiment?”
I rose and took my Friend’s hand.
“My dear fellow,” I said, “I not only will, but I shall.”
46
