ttes to Turkish.

A silence had lengthened into embarrassment, in which I was combating a
native irritability with the placid philosophical acceptance of the
unstirred Tao, when he asked suddenly:

"Did you know I was married?" I admitted that this information had
eluded me, when he added in the fatuous manner of such victims of a
purely automatic process, "To Miss Ena Meeker that was."

I asked if he had joined the family circle in the special sense, but he
said not yet; he wasn't worthy. Then I realized that there was a valid
reason for his presence, but, unfortunately, it operated slowly with
him; he had to have a satisfactory audience for the astounding good
fortune he had managed. He wanted to talk, and McGeorge, I recalled, had
been a man without intimates or family in the city. Almost uncannily, as
if in answer to my thought, he proceeded:

"I'm here because you have a considerable brain and, to a certain
extent, a courageous attitude. You are all that and yet you won't
recognize the truth about the beyond, the precious world of spirits."

"Material."

However, I indicated in another sense that I wasn't material for any
propaganda of hysterical and subnormal seances. His being grew inflated
with the condescending pity of dogmatic superstition for logic.

"Many professors and men of science are with us, and I am anxious, in
your own interest, for you to see the light. I've already admitted that
you would be valuable. You can't accuse me of being mercenary." I
couldn't. "I must tell you," he actually cried out, in sudden surrender
to the tyrannical necessity of self-revelation. "My marriage to Ena was
marvelous, marvelous, a true wedding of souls. Mr. Meeker," he added in
a different, explanatory manner, "like all careful fathers, is not
unconscious of the need, here on earth, of a portion of worldly goods.
For a while, and quite naturally, he was opposed to our union.

"There was a Wallace Esselmann." A perceptible caution overtook him, but
which, with a gesture, he evidently discarded. "But I ought to explain
how I met the Meekers. I called." I expressed a surprise, which he
solemnly misread. "It became necessary for me to tell them of my
admiration and belief," he proceeded.

"I saw Mrs. Meeker and Ena in the front room where the sittings are
held. Mrs. Meeker sat straight up, with her hands folded; but Ena was
enchanting." He paused, lost in the visualization of the enchantment.
"All sweet curves and