“The room was darkish,” said Mr. Guffins. “The lights were dim. I stood in the light of the red globe, and it gave me a weird look. I held the crystal globe in one hand and the jade talisman in the other. The incense arose from the incense-burner. As if out of the empty air, a sweet-toned bell rang three times. I bowed low three times as the bell rang and muttered the magic words. I made them up as I said them, but they sounded mystic. Mrs. Lippett was sitting on the edge of her chair, breathless with emotion. The curtains were drawn across the door at the back of the room. You could have heard a pin drop. We were alone, just we two. I felt creepy myself. I turned toward the curtains. I said, ‘Henry, appear!’”
“Yes?” queried Philo Gubb.
Mr. Guffins threw out both hands with a gesture of utter despair.
“A pig came under the curtains,” he groaned. “A pig—a great, fat, double-chinned, pinky-white pig, the kind you see at county fairs—came under the curtains and grunted twice. It stood there and raised its head and grunted twice.”
Mr. Guffins wrung his hands nervously.
“It—it surprised me,” he said,—“but only for a minute. I said, ‘Get out, you beast!’ and was going to kick it, but Mrs. Lippett rose slowly from her chair. She half-tottered for an instant, and then she covered her face with her hands. She began to weep. ‘I knew it!’ she sobbed; ‘I knew it! Oh, Henry, I knew you ate too much. I told you and told you again and again you were making a pig of yourself. Oh, Henry, if you had only been less of a pig when you were alive before!’ And what do you think that pig did?”
“What did it do?” asked Philo Gubb.
“It sat up on its hind legs and begged,” said Mr. Guffins, “begged for food. It was awful! Mrs. Lippett couldn’t stand it. She wept. ‘He was always so hungry in his other life,’ she said. ‘I can’t begin to be stern with him now. To-morrow, but not when he has just come back to me. Come, Henry!’
“She went into the dining-room,” continued Mr. Guffins, “and Henry—or the pig, for it couldn’t have been Henry—followed her. And what do you think it did?”
“What?” asked Mr. Gubb.