"Well, if you don't mind, I will. It's a bad habit, I'm told, but it sorts o' helps me when I'm nervous."
Mr. Payson placed the tips of his fingers together, palm to palm, and gestured with them. "Now, Professor Vixley, seeing that I know nothing about you, would you mind letting me see what you can do first in the way of a test, before we go to the main object of my visit?"
"Why, certainly, though I can't promise to do anything conclusive the first time. I want you to feel at liberty to try me in any way you wish."
"Well, I've got three questions I'd like to have you answer. I happen to know that you couldn't possibly know what they are. If you can answer them, I'll be satisfied that you can help me."
"I'll try," said Vixley modestly. "It all depends upon my guides, and we can't tell till we begin." He arose, walked to the mantel and brought back a small pad of paper.
"Here's what I generally use. This paper is magnetized in order to make it easier. Examine it all you please—you won't find no carbon transfer paper nor nothin' like that."
"Why can't I use my own paper?"
"I ain't got no more idea than you have," the medium confessed candidly. "Why can't a photographer take a picture on common glass? I don't know. I ain't a photographer. All I do know is, that we can get results from this paper that my control has magnetized, when we can't from yours. The spirits may be able to explain it—I can't. Now you write down the name of your control and your three questions, one on each piece and fold it over twice. Then I'll pull down the shades and see what I can do."
Mr. Payson brought his hand down on the table querulously. "That's another thing I don't like," he said. "Why can't spirits work in the light as well as in the dark, I'd like to know? It looks suspicious to me."
Vixley took the cigar from his teeth and sat down patiently before his dupe. He rapped with his forefinger upon the table. "See here, it's this way, Mr. Payson; every science has its own condition that has got to be fulfilled before any experiment can be a success, hasn't it? You can't go against nature. If you want an electric light or telephone, you have to run wires, don't you? Why? I don't know—I'm not an electrician. If you want to develop a photograph, you have to do it in the dark. Why? I don't know—go ask a photographer. If you want to make a seed grow, you put it down into the dirt and water it. Why? I don't know. Nobody knows. It's one o' the mysteries o' life. In the same way, if you want to get results in spiritualism, you have to submit to the conditions that are imposed by my guide. Why? I don't know. And what's more, I don't care. If I can get the results, it makes no difference to me how they come. All I do know is that fifty years' experience has shown us mediums the proper conditions necessary for the physical manifestation of phenomena. Full daylight is all right for psychic influences, but it don't do for slate-writin'. The question is whether you want to accept the conditions I give you, or do you expect the spirits to work in a way that's impossible?"