objections to bringing your own slates
and writing your own questions, but while they held the slate under the
table they kept you talking to distract your attention, and from time to
time they got convulsive jerks and movements by which it was quite
possible for them to see what was written. Then you heard a scratching
(the medium probably had a little bit of pencil in his finger-nail), and
your answer was given you. Well, let that pass for what it's worth, but
I always noticed the medium asked if I wouldn't like a message, and when
I said `yes,' he brought out _his own slate_."

"But," said Mrs Jefferson, "didn't he let you examine it first?"

"Oh yes, and wiped it over with a damp cloth. Then it was held under
the table, and in a few seconds covered with `spirit-writing.' But I
found out afterwards that you can buy slates with a _false cover_, this
cover fits within the frame and is exactly like the other side of the
slate, but, _your spirit-message is already written_, a touch makes the
cover drop off, the medium covers it with his foot in case you should
look under the table, out comes the slate, and there you are!"

"On," said Mrs Jefferson angrily, "it's plain you've only been to the
charlatans and impostors of spiritualism. Why, I've had a message
written in a _locked_ slate while I held the key and held the slate too.
What do you say to that?"

"I've only your word for it," said Mrs Masterman sarcastically. "My
slates were never locked."

"And I've only _your_ word for what you've told us," answered Mrs
Jefferson with rising wrath. "I suppose my evidence may be as
trustworthy."

"Well," interposed another voice, "my view of spiritualism is, that it's
an intensely humiliating idea after you've done with this world to be at
the beck and call of any other human being who can make you go through a
variety of tricks, as if you were a performing dog, in order to convince
people still in the body that there is another life. If that other life
permits us to come back here and play tambourines, and knock furniture
about, and write silly and ambiguous messages on slates, I don't--
myself--think it's a very desirable one."

This view of the question produced a blank silence. It proceeded from a
gentleman who was supposed to be a little "odd"--partly because he spoke
seldom, and then with a startling originality, on any subject of
discussion.

Mr and Mrs Ray Jefferson looked at one another, somewhat disma