had remained a bachelor owing to
religious scruples. The vegetarianism was equally certain, for I had
heard orders given for special dishes to be prepared for this guest; and
sitting next to him at the dinner-table, I knew that he had not touched
either meat or game, although it was not a fast day.

After dinner, when the gentlemen had joined us in the drawing-room, the
conversation turned upon psychic matters and my experiences in America
of a few years before. This extreme High Churchman denounced all these,
"lock, stock, and barrel."

He believed that everything might have happened as described, but was
equally certain that the devil alone could have had a hand in "such
goings on"! Perhaps it will be wise to explain that he did not make use
of this latter expression!

My host, instead of coming to the rescue, which he might have done, as
one of "the Cloth"; looked much amused when I fielded most of my
adversary's theological balls.

At length, being unaccustomed to such irreverent handling, my enemy lost
his temper, and, as usual on such occasions, he tried to "take my
wicket" by quoting texts against me!

"Well, all I can say is that everything you have told us is in direct
opposition to Holy Writ. In fact, _we are specially warned in the
Scriptures that in the latter days seducing spirits shall arise_."

At this fatal moment, when the Theological Closure was descending upon
my unhappy head, a really brilliant thought occurred to me.

Was it a seducing spirit or a friendly intelligence who reminded me
that my opponent had only quoted half the text--_the half that suited
him_?

I pointed this fact out meekly.

He looked puzzled, and probably had honestly forgotten what he did not
wish to remember.

"Finish the text? What do you mean?" he said irritably.

So I finished it for him:

"In the latter days seducing spirits shall arise, _forbidding to marry
and commanding to abstain from meats_."

He had pressed me very hard and rather unfairly. Still, the counsel of
perfection would have been to refrain from the comment that, if _I_ were
a celibate and vegetarian, it was not the text I should have chosen with
which to clinch an argument!

AN INTERLUDE

I have headed this chapter an _Interlude_, for the following reason:--

It is the only one in this book which does not record a personal
experience.

The opportunity came to me at Florence, two years ago, of hearing one of
the best old-fashion