' 'palmists,'
and 'psychometrists' whose signs lined the street and pointed along the
paths of the camp.

"In its way it was as dramatic a contrast of light and shade, of the
real and the unreal, as this otherwise prosaic republic can show. There
under the vivid summer sun, beside the glittering sea, men and women met
to commune on the incommunicable, to question the voiceless, and to
embrace the intangible. It was, indeed, such a revelation of human
credulity as might well have overpowered a young novelist. From the
warm, pine-scented afternoon air I crept into one of these tiny cabins,
and sat with my hands upon a closed slate in order to receive a message
from Lincoln or Caesar; I slipped beneath the shelter of a tent to have a
sealed letter read by a commonplace person with an Indian accent; and I
sat at night in dark little parlors to watch weak men and weeping women
embrace very badly designed effigies of their lost darlings."

"Isn't it incredible? Can you imagine any reasonable person believing
such things?" asked Miller.

"Millions do," I replied.

"Please go on," entreated Mrs. Miller. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing really worth reporting upon. In that day of utter credulity no
tests were possible, but immediately after my return to Boston I had my
first entirely satisfactory test of the occult. I went with Mrs. Rose,
one of our members, to sit for 'independent slate-writing'--that is to
say, writing on the inner surfaces of closed slates. Up to this moment I
was profoundly sceptical, but I could not doubt the reality of what
happened. I took my own slates--the ordinary hinged school slates; but
whether they were my own or not made no difference really, for the final
test which I demanded was such that any prepared slates were useless.
I'm not going into tiresome detail. I only say that while sitting at the
table with both Mrs. Rose's hands and my own resting upon the slates _I
dictated_ certain lines to be drawn upon the inside of the slates."

Miller's voice expressed growing interest. "And this was done?"

"It was done. I had in mind the test which Alfred Russel Wallace had
used in a similar case. He dictated several words to be written while
holding the slates securely in his own hands. In this instance I asked
for the word 'Constantinople' to be written. The psychic smiled,
shrugged her shoulders, and replied: 'I'll try, but I don't believe
they can spell it.' 'Draw a straight line, then,' said