you." In all this there
was not a trace of Samuel Cooper, and Professor Hyslop did not know what
to think. He therefore put a direct question in order to bring his
father back to the point he had in mind. "I wanted to know if you
remembered anything about the dogs killing sheep?" "Oh, I should think I
did ... but I had forgotten all about it. That was what we had the
discussion about.... Yes, very well, James, but just what you asked me
this for I could not quite make out as he was no relation of mine ... if
I could have recalled what you were getting at I would have tried to
tell you. He is here, but I see him seldom." This episode is
interesting. All that Robert Hyslop said at first about Cooper has
nothing to do with Samuel Cooper, but is entirely true of an old friend
of his, Dr Joseph Cooper. Robert Hyslop had really had many
philosophical discussions with him, and they had corresponded. Professor
Hyslop had perhaps heard his name, but did not know that he was an old
friend of his father. It was his step-mother who told him this, in the
course of an inquiry he made amongst his relatives to clear up doubtful
incidents in the sittings. We see that disincarnated beings are capable
of misunderstanding as well as ourselves.

But the following is the most dramatic incident. Professor Hyslop,
remembering that his father had thought his last illness catarrh, while
he himself believed it to be cancer of the larynx, asked the
communicator a question aimed at bringing up the word "catarrh." He
asked, "Do you know what the trouble was when you passed out?" The
double meaning of the word "trouble" caused a curious misunderstanding,
which the telepathic hypothesis will find it difficult to explain.

The communicator replied in distress, "No, I did not realise that we had
the least trouble, James, ever. I thought we were always most congenial
to each other. I do not remember any trouble--tell me what it was about?
You do not mean with me, do you?" "Father, you misunderstand me. I mean
with the sickness." "Oh, yes, I hear--I know now. Yes, my stomach."
"Yes, was there anything else the matter?" "Yes, stomach, liver and
head--difficult to breathe. My heart, James, made me suffer. Don't you
remember what a trouble I had to breathe? I think it was my heart which
made me suffer the most--my heart and my lungs. Tightness of the
chest--my heart failed me; but at last I went to sleep." A little
further on he says, "Do you know, the last