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with an effort, and said, with a nervous laugh:
"I don't know whether i did it myself or not. I do know that I was growing
nervous, standing there like a psychic fool with all your solemn faces turned
upon me."
"Hen-scratches," was Uncle Robert's judgement, when he looked over the paper
upon which she had scrawled.
"Quite illegible," was Mrs. Grantly's dictum. "It does not resemble writing
at all. The influences have not got to working yet. Do you try it, Mr.
Barton."
That gentleman stepped forward, ponderously willing to please, and placed
his hand on the board. And for ten solid, stolid minutes he stood there,
motionless, like a statue, the frozen personification of the commercial age.
Uncle Robert's face began to work. He blinked, stiffened his mouth, uttered
suppressed, throaty sounds, deep down; finally he snorted, lost his
self-control, and broke out in a roar of laughter. All joined in this
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merriment, including Mrs. Grantly. Mr. Barton laughed with them, but he was
vaguely nettled.
"You try it, Story," he said.
Uncle Robert, still laughing, and urged on by Lute and his wife, took the
board. Suddenly his face sobered. His hand had begun to move, and the pencil
could be heard scratching across the paper.
"By George!" he muttered. "That's curious. Look at it. I'm not doing it. I
know I'm not doing it. look at that hand go! Just look at it!"
"Now, Robert, none of your ridiculousness," his wife warned him.
"I tell you I'm not doing it," he replied indignantly. "The force has got
hold of me. Ask Mrs. Grantly. Tell her to make it stop, if you want it to
stop. I can't stop it. By George! look at that flourish. I didn't do that. I
never wrote a flourish in my life."
"Do try to be serious," Mrs. Grantly warned them. "An atmosphere of levity
does not conduce to the best operation of Planchette."
"There, that will do, I guess," Uncle Robert said as he took his hand away.
"Now let's see."
He bent over and adjusted his glasses. "It's handwriting at any rate, and
that's better than the rest of you did. Here, Lute, your eyes are young."
"Oh, what flourishes!" Lute exclaimed, as she looked at the paper. "And look
there, there are two different handwritings."
She began to read: "This is the first lecture. Concentrate on this sentence:
'I am a positive spirit and not negative to any condition.' Then follow with
concentration on positive 1ove. After that peace and harmony will vibrate
through and around your body. Your soul The other writing breaks right in.
This is the way it goes: Bullfrog 95, Dixie 16, Golden Anchor 65, Gold
Mountain 13, Jim Butler 70, Jumbo 75, North Star 42, Rescue 7, Black Butte 75,
Brown Hope 16, Iron Top 3."
"Iron Top's pretty low," Mr. Barton murmured.
"Robert, you've been dabbling again!" Aunt Mildred cried accusingly.
"No, I've not," he denied. "I only read the quotations. But how the devil I
beg your pardon they got there on that piece of paper I'd like to know."
"Your subconscious mind," Chris suggested. "You read the quotations in
to-day's paper."
"No, I didn't; but last week I glanced over the column."
"A day or a year is all the same in the subconscious mind," said Mrs.
Grantly. "The subconscious mind never forgets. But I am not saying that this
is due to the subconscious mind. I refuse to state to what I think it is due."
"But how about that other stuff?" Uncle Robert demanded. "Sounds like what
I'd think Christian Science ought to sound like."
"Or theosophy," Aunt Mildred volunteered. "Some message to a neophyte."
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"Go on, read the rest," her husband commanded.
"This puts you in touch with the mightier spirits," Lute read. "You shall
become one with us, and your name shall be 'Arya,' and you shall Conqueror 20,
Empire 12, Columbia Mountain 18, Midway 140 and, and that is all. Oh, no!
here's a last flourish, Arya, from Kandor that must surely be the Mahatma."
"I'd like to have you explain that theosophy stuff on the basis of the
subconscious mind, Chris," Uncle Robert challenged.
Chris shrugged his shoulders. "No explanation. You must have got a message
intended for some one else."
"Lines were crossed, eh?" Uncle Robert chuckled. "Multiplex spiritual
wireless telegraphy, I'd call it."
"It IS nonsense," Mrs. Grantly said. "I never knew Planchette to behave so
outrageously. There are disturbing influences at work. I felt them from the
first. Perhaps it is because you are all making too much fun of it. You are
too hilarious."
"A certain befitting gravity should grace the occasion," Chris agreed,
placing his hand on Planchette. "Let me try. And not one of you must laugh or
giggle, or even think 'laugh' or 'giggle.' And if you dare to snort, even
once, Uncle Robert, there is no telling what occult vengeance may be wreaked
upon you."
"I'll be good," Uncle Robert rejoined. "But if I really must snort, may I
silently slip away?"
Chris nodded. His hand had already begun to work. There had been no
preliminary twitchings nor tentative essays at writing. At once his hand had
started off, and Planchette was moving swiftly and smoothly across the paper.
"Look at him," Lute whispered to her aunt. "See how white he is."
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