arke or any one there should
know what we used to call Uncle Ben."

"What? Did you get a message from him?"

"A voice from the megaphone asked for me, and when I requested the
name of 'the party speaking,' as Clarke says, it replied with an oily
chuckle, exactly like the old duffer, '_It's old Loggy._'"

"It did?" Her voice was sharp with surprise. "Well, now, that is as
wonderful as my experience. How do you account for _that_? How _do_
you account for such things?" she repeated, insistently.

"Clarke must have known--"

"Nonsense. No one outside our immediate family knows of that nickname.
Besides, how would he know the way 'Loggy' laughed? I'd forgotten it
myself."

"So had I. But what would you say? Would you jump to the conclusion--"

"_You_ are jumping at the conclusion, Mort. If there is one single
thing that you can't understand, you must give that girl the benefit
of the doubt. What did 'Loggy' say?"

"There you go! You're ready to swallow the whole lump of humbuggery,
just because there is one little puzzling plum in it."

Kate was not to be put down. "What did uncle _say_?"

He submitted. "Nothing else. Like most of those dead folk, he was
there just to manifest, not to impart wisdom."

Kate leaned back in her chair and grew thoughtful. "Morton, that was
wonderful. No one knew you were coming, no one knew you except those
people, and they're from, the other end of the earth--and yet
_somebody_ speaks, using a pet name we've both forgotten. Now, I call
that a most important thing to dwell upon. How can _you_, a scientist,
overlook it?"

"But you must remember all this happened in the house of jugglery.
There is no value in a performance of that kind. There was no test
applied. Confederates had full opportunity to come and go. To have
weight with me these wonders must take place under conditions of my
making, not theirs."

"That's what she wants."

"I don't believe it. Pardon me, Kate, but you've been taken in.
Whatever this girl was two years ago, she is now a part of Clarke's
scheme, which is to secure a tremendous lot of advertising and
then--emit a book."

Kate transfixed him with a finger. "Morton Serviss, there is nothing
so convincing as a tone. I know that girl is honest--she may be
deceived, she may be made a tool of, unconsciously, by Clarke, but she
does not wilfully deceive. I will not let you off with this
experience; you must see her in private--talk with her as I did."

"I w