o go.

"What do you think of spiritualism?"

"Blasted rot," said Mr. Morton. "Anything more I can do for you?"

"Do you know anything about it?"

"No. Don't want to. Is that all?"

"Well, look here;" said Laurie.... "Oh! sit down for two minutes."

* * * * *

Then he began. He described carefully his experiences of the night
before, explaining so much as was necessary of antecedent events. The
other during the course of it tilted his hat back, and half leaned,
half sat against a side-table, watching the boy at first with a genial
contempt, and finally with the same curious interest that one gives to
a man with a new disease.

"Now, what d'you make of that?" ended Laurie, flushed and superb.

"D'you want to know?" came after a short silence.

Laurie nodded.

"What I said at the beginning, then."

"What?"

"Blasted rot," said Mr. Morton again.

Laurie frowned sharply, and affected to put his books together.

"Of course, if you take it like that," he said. "But I don't know what
respect you can possibly have for any evidence, if...."

"My dear chap, that isn't evidence. No evidence in the world could
make me believe that the earth was upside down. These things don't
happen."

"Then how do you explain...?"

"I don't explain," said Mr. Morton. "The thing's simply not worth
looking into. If you really saw that, you're either mad or else there
was a trick.... Now come along to lunch."

"But I'm not the only one," cried Laurie hotly.

"No, indeed you're not.... Look here, Baxter, that sort of thing plays
the devil with nerves. Just drop it once and for all. I knew a chap
once who went in for all that. Well, the end was what everybody knew
would happen...."

"Yes?" said Laurie.

"Went off his chump," said the other briefly. "Nasty mess all over the
floor. Now come to lunch."

"Wait a second. You can't argue from particulars to universals. Was he
the only one you ever knew?"

The other paused a moment.

"No," he said. "As it happens, he wasn't. I knew another chap--he's a
solicitor.... Oh! by the way, he's one of your people--a Catholic, I
mean."

"Well, what about him?" "Oh! he's all right," admitted Mr. Morton,
with a grudging air. "But he gave it up and took to religion instead."

"Yes? What's his name?"

"Cathcart."

He glanced up at the clock.

"Good Lord," he said, "ten to one."

Then he was gone.

* * * * *

Laurie