per and a pencil were laid upon
the table. Everything movable was entirely out of the psychic's reach.

It was about three o'clock of the afternoon when, after darkening the
windows, we took our seats in a little circle about the table. As usual,
I guarded the psychic's right hand, while Fowler sat at her left.
Brierly and Mrs. Fowler were opposite Mrs. Smiley. The room was lighter
than at any other of our sittings--both on account of the infiltering
light of day, and also because an open grate fire in the north wall
sent forth an occasional flicker of red flame.

We sat for some time discussing Miller and Harris and their attitude
toward the psychic. I remarked:

"To me our failures, some of them at least, have been very instructive,
but the gradual falling away of our members makes evident to me how
unlikely it is that any official commission will ever settle the claims
of spiritualism. As Maxwell has said: 'It is a slow process, and he who
cannot bring himself to plod patiently and to wait uncomplainingly for
hours at a time will not go far.' I confess that the half-heartedness of
our members has disappointed me. I told them at the outset not to expect
entertainment, but they did. It _is_ tiresome to sit night after night
and get nothing for one's pains. It seems foolish and vain, but any real
investigator accepts all these discomforts as part of the game. Failures
are sure to come when the psychic is honest. Only the juggler can
produce the same effects. A medium is not a Leyden-jar nor an Edison
battery; materialization is not precisely a vaudeville 'stunt.'"

"I don't call the last sitting a failure," said Fowler. "The conditions
were strictly test conditions, and yet matter was moved without contact.
Of course, the mere movement of a table, or even of the trumpet, seems
rather tame, as compared with the doings of 'Katie King'; but, after
all, a single genuine case of telekinesis should be of the greatest
value to the physicist; and, as for the psychologist, the fact of your
friend, Mrs. Thomas, becoming entranced by 'Wilbur' was startling
enough, in all conscience."

"I don't think Miller believed in her trance," said I.

"What happened?" asked Brierly, who had not been present at this
particular sitting.

I answered: "Mrs. Thomas, a friend of mine, a very efficient,
clear-brained person, whom, by-the-way, we had asked to come in order to
fully preserve the proprieties, suddenly felt a twitching in her lef