“I shall undoubtedly appreciate this particular process”—and Mr. Leffingwell appeared to be catching his breath, as he felt himself released from the terrific force generated from somewhere. “But pray go on. I’m deeply interested.”
“Very good,” responded Bill, holding his rival suspended that he might converse with him. “You are, of course, aware that, as an astral being, you’ve had enormous advantages over the man encased in the physical.”
“True, and yet, you—”
“Pardon me,” interrupted the druggist dryly when the Mystic would have chipped in. “This advantage you’ve used remorselessly, to break up my home. You broke the spirit, if not the letter, of occult law. You know you did. You ignored our agreement made before you left Kankakee. You knew and you acknowledged my claim upon Mrs. V., for at least this present dispensation. I told you then that I was perfectly willing to take a back seat in a century or so. Apparently this didn’t satisfy you. You took advantage of your superior learning to sneak into my house like a thief. Oh, yes, of course, you came astrally. Of course you didn’t use skeleton keys. But,—you got there just the same, and you got in your work.”
“But,—but,—” pleaded the man from Gingalee—“I never agreed not to seek her enlightenment, at such times and places as might be convenient. I merely returned here to instruct her in the Fifty-Seven-Fold-Path, and to discourse to her upon those several and sundry sheaths which do clothe her higher principles. And—”
“Oh, Bosh!” growled Bill. “All that sounds very fine, in your measly old Sanscrit; but you stole her just the same, and that’s plain United States. And now, Mr. Mystic,”—and the angry husband shut his teeth with a savage click—“you must know that outraged confidence will seek revenge. That’s your karma, ain’t it, Mr. Alonzo Leffingwell, Gnani of Gingalee, and Grand High Muckymuck of the Order of Nowhere? I’ve got you, and I’ve got you in your own trap. You’re hoist by your own petard. You went in for Science, and so did I. Science is going to settle this dispute, and you’re about to learn that nature has several laws. Oh, pusillanimous pirate of the air, you are about to realize that invention is the hand-maid of justice, and that science is—the—mother-in-law—of—doom.”
“How,—what,—Bill,—I do not comprehend,” murmured Mr. Leffingwell perplexedly, as he disappeared slowly through the ceiling in response to the faint current with which Bill was now holding him.
“No?”—queried Bill sarcastically as the gentleman reappeared. “Then there are, after all, some few things you don’t comprehend. Well, then—” and the druggist drew himself up with calm ferocity—“I will enlighten you. Hear then my pronunciamento. You’ve been weighed in the balance and found wanting—everything that didn’t rightfully belong to you; and because of that I, your self-appointed judge and executioner, have resolved—upon—your—complete—annihilation.”
“A-n-n-i-h-i-l-a-t-i-o-n-!”
“A-n-n-i-h-i-l-a-t-i-o-n-!”