“No spirits,” he said curtly.
I swallowed eagerly the heady liquor, and felt a little more like myself.
“You were complaining,” I remarked, “of something like aphasia?”
“I was,” he replied. “You know what aphasia is in the human subject? A paralysis of certain nervous centres, which prevents the patient, though perfectly sane, from getting at the words which he intends to use, and forces others upon him. He may wish to observe that it is a fine morning, and may discover that his idea has taken the form of an observation about the Roman Calendar under the Emperor Justinian. That is aphasia, and we suffer from what, I presume, is a spiritual modification of that disorder.”
“Yet to-night,” I responded, “you are speaking like a printed book.”
“To-night,” said the spectre, acknowledging the compliment with a bow, “the conditions are peculiarly favourable.”
“Not to me,” I thought, with a sigh.
“And I am able to manifest myself with unusual clearness.”
“Then you are not always in such form as I am privileged to find you in?” I inquired.
“By no means,” replied the spectre. “Sometimes I cannot appear worth a cent. Often I am invisible to the naked eye, and even quite indiscernible by any of the senses. Sometimes I can only rap on the table, or send a cold wind over a visitor’s face, or at most pull off his bedclothes (like the spirit which appeared to Caligula, and is mentioned by Suetonius) and utter hollow groans.”