,--but keep to the point,--you're shufflin' the
question. I want to argue this out on logical grounds. I know as
well as _you_ do that, if only I 'ave 'armony and a round table in my
family, I can make that table dance the poker--but what I'm puttin'
to _you_ is (_triumphantly_), 'ow does that prove to me as I'm in
communication with the Bogie Man? That's what _you've_ got to answer.

[Illustration: "Yer may sometimes hentertain a angel unawares!"]

_The Y.S._. We Soshalists 'ate the Tories as we 'ate sin. Why, young
polertician as I ham, &c., &c.

_The Spiritualist_ (_an elderly and earnest person_). All I can
reply to you is, we Spiritualists do not think--we _know_ that these
phenomena appear--yes, as surely as I know I am 'olding this stick in
my 'and.

_The Sceptic_ (_pityingly_). There you go again, yer see--that
stick ain't the point. _I_ can see the stick. A stick ain't a
phenomena--you're confusin' two different things. Now I'm goin' to
offer you a fair challenge. You perdooce me a Spirit--not in a back
room, with the lights out, but _'ere_, in broad daylight, in this
Park--you get that Spirit to naturalise itself, or whatever you call
it, and I'll _believe_ in 'im. Come, now!

_A Bystander_. Ah, that's the way to corner _'is_ sort. 'E knows 'e
carn't _do_ it!

_The Spiritualist_ (_with a smile of sad superiority_). Ridicule ain't
argyment. [_The discussion continues._

_The Young Socialist_. Don't tork to me of Patriotism! What have the
likes of you and me got to be patriotic about? I'm a Universalist, I
am, and so long as a man rallies round our glorious Red Flag (_here he
waves a dingy scarlet rag on a stick_), it's all one to me whether his
own colour is black, yeller, green, brown, _or_ white!

[_Applause._

_Reciter Number One_ (_in the midst of a thrilling prose narrative
about a certain_ "'ARRY," _who has apparently got into legal
difficulties for having thrown a cocoa-nut stick at a retired
Colonel_). Well, I went into the Court 'ouse, and there, sure enough,
was my pore mate 'ARRY in the dock, and there was hold Ginger-whiskers
(_laughter_) a setting on the bench along with the hother beaks,
lookin' biliouser, and pepperier, and more happerplecticker nor ever!
"Prison-ar," he sez, addressin' 'ARRY (_imitation of the voice and
manner of a retired Colonel_), "Prison-ar, 'ave you--har--hanythink
to say in your beyarf--har?" And then, hall of a sudden, I sor a
flash come into my dear 'ole