Page:Frenzied Fiction.djvu/64

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Frenzied Fiction

no members of Congress and no Adamsons; it’s all bright and beautiful and——

“Great-grandfather,” I said, as I hung up the receiver in disgust, “you are a Mutt!”

I never spoke to him again. Yet I feel sorry for him, feeble old soul, flitting about in the Illimitable, and always so punctual to hurry to the telephone, so happy, so feeble-witted and so courteous; a better man, perhaps, take it all in all, than he was in life; lonely, too, it may be, out there in the Vastness. Yet I never called him up again. He is happy. Let him stay.

Indeed, my acquaintance with the spirit world might have ended at that point but for the good offices, once more, of my Friend.

“You find your great-grandfather a little slow, a little dull?” he said. “Well, then, if you want brains, power, energy, why not call up some of the spirits of the great men, some of the leading men, for instance, of your great-grandfather’s time?”

“You’ve said it!” I exclaimed. “I’ll call up Napoleon Bonaparte.”

I hurried to the agency.

“Is it possible,” I asked, “for me to call up the Emperor Napoleon and talk to him?”

Possible? Certainly. It appeared that nothing was easier. In the case of Napoleon Bonaparte the nominal fee had to be ten

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