ered with another cup, saucer and plate which she sets on the table,
and pours out the coffee._

CATHERINE. [_Interested_.] Were you speaking of--of ghosts, Doctor?

PETER. Yes, he has begun again. [_To_ CATHERINE.] You're just in time to
hear it. [_To_ DR. MACPHERSON.] Andrew, I'll stay behind, contented in
_this_ life; knowing what I have here on earth, and you shall die and
return with your--ha!--persistent personal whatever-it-is, and keep the
spook compact. Every time a knock sounds, or a chair squeaks, or the door
bangs, I shall say, "Sh! There's the Doctor!"

CATHERINE. [_Noticing a book which the_ DOCTOR _has taken from his pocket,
and reading the title_.] "Are the Dead Alive?"

DR. MACPHERSON. I'm in earnest, Peter. _I'll_ promise and I want you to
promise, too. Understand that I am not a so-called spiritist. I am merely
a seeker after truth. [_Puts more sugar in his coffee_.

PETER. That's what they _all_ are--seekers after truth. Rubbish! Do you
really believe such stuff?

DR. MACPHERSON. I know that the dead are alive. They're here--here--near
us--close at hand. [PETER, _in derision, lifts the table-cloth and peeps
under the table--then, taking the lid off the sugar-bowl, peers into it_.]
Some of the great scientists of the day are of the same opinion.

PETER. Bah! Dreamers! They accomplish nothing in the world. They waste
their lives dreaming of the world to come.

DR. MACPHERSON. You can't call Sir Charles Crookes, the inventor of
Crookes Tubes,--a waster? Nor Sir Oliver Lodge, the great biologist; nor
Curie, the discoverer of radium; nor Doctor Lombroso, the founder of
Science of Criminology; nor Doctors Maxwell, deVesme, Richet, Professor
James, of Harvard, and our own Professor Hyslop. Instead of laughing at
ghosts, the scientific men of to-day are trying to lay hold of them. The
frauds and cheats are being crowded from the field. Science is only just
peeping through the half-opened door which was shut until a few years ago.

PETER. If ever I see a ghost, I shall lay violent hands upon it and take
it to the police station. That's the proper place for frauds.

DR. MACPHERSON. I'm sorry, Peter, very sorry, to see that you, like too
many others, make a jest of the most important thing in life. Hyslop is
right: man will spend millions to discover the North Pole, but not a penny
to discover his immortal destiny.

PETER. [_Stubbornly_.] I don't believe in spook mediums and never shall
believe in th