to be deceived upon so intimate a matter as this, to be duped by impostors who used their most sacred feel¬ ings and their beloved dead as counters with which to cheat them. What did they know of the laws of evi¬ dence, of the cold, immutable decrees of scientific law ? Poor earnest, honest, deluded people !
“ Now! ” screamed Mr. Peeble. “ We shall ask Mr. Munro from Australia to give us the invocation.”
A wild-looking old man with a shaggy beard and slumbering fire in his eyes rose up and stood for a few seconds with his gaze cast down. Then he began a prayer, very simple, very unpremeditated. Malone jotted down the first sentence: “ Oh, Father, we are very ignorant folk and do not well know how to approach you, but we will pray to you the best we know how.” It was all cast in that humble key. Enid and Malone exchanged a swift glance of appre¬ ciation.
There was another hymn, less successful than the first, and the chairman then announced that Mr. James Jones of North Wales would now deliver a trance address which would embody the views of his well- known control, Alasha the Atlantean.
Mr. James Jones, a brisk and decided little man in a faded check suit, came to the front and, after standing a minute or so as if in deep thought, gave a violent shudder and began to talk. It must be admitted that save for a certain fixed stare and vacuous glazing of the eye there was nothing to show that anything save Mr. James Jones of North Wales was the orator. It has also to be stated that if Mr. Jones shuddered at the beginning it was the turn of his audience to shudder afterwards. Granting his own claim, he had proved clearly that an Atlantean spirit might be a portentous bore. He droned on with platitudes and
