alism, do they?"

"Most of them do, who count, my dear chap. The presence of a vital
spark--a spark that cannot be put out--is merely a theory with nothing
to prove it. When he dies, the animating principle doesn't leave a man,
and go off on its own. It dies too. It was part of the man--as much as
his heart or brain."

"That's only an opinion. Nobody can be positive. We don't know anything
about what life really means, and we haven't got the machinery to find
out."

"By analogy we can," argued Tom. "Where are you going to draw the line?
Life is life, and a sponge is just as much alive as a herring; a nettle
is just as much alive as an oak-tree; and an oak-tree is just as much
alive as you are. What becomes of its vital spark when you eat an
oyster?"

"You wouldn't believe in a life after death at all, then?"

"It's a pure assumption, Henry. I'd like to believe in it--who wouldn't?
Because, if you honestly did, it would transform this life into
something infinitely different from what it is."

"It ought to--yet it doesn't seem to."

"It ought to, certainly. If you believe this life is only the portal to
another of much greater importance, then--well, there you are. Nothing
matters but trying to make everybody else believe it, too. But as a
matter of fact, the people who do believe it, or think they do, seem
to me just as concentrated on this life and just as much out to get the
very best they can from it, and wring it dry, as I am, who reckon it's
all."

"They believe as a matter of course, and don't seem to realize how much
their belief ought to imply," confessed Henry.

"Why do they believe? Because most of them haven't really thought about
it more than a turnip thinks. They dwell in a foggy sort of way on the
future life when they go to church on Sundays; then they return home and
forget all about it till next Sunday."

Lennox brought him back to the present difference.

"Well, seeing you laugh at ghosts, and I remain doubtful, it's only fair
that I sleep in the Grey Room. You must see that. Ghosts hate people
who don't believe in them. They'd cold shoulder you; but in my case they
might feel I was good material, worth convincing. They might show up for
me in a friendly spirit. If they show for you, it will probably be to
bully you."

Tom laughed.

"That's what I want. I'd like to have it out and talk sense to a spook,
and show him what an ass he's making of himself. The governor was right
about that