“Come, now,” said he, “you can’t deny that’s your cart, can you?”
“Why,” was the answer, “it does indeed look like my cart. But I know it isn’t.”
“How do you know it isn’t?”
“Because”—in a tone of solemn conviction—“I know that by this time my cart is on Jupiter.”
In another case, drawn to my attention by a lawyer friend, the victim was a well-to-do Boston merchant, who had become interested in spiritism shortly after the death of his wife, to whom he had been devotedly attached, and with whose spirit he hoped to be brought into communication. A medium, learning this, determined to profit from his grief and longing, and hired a young woman to pose as the spirit of the dead wife. He was then told that before long it would be possible to “materialize” his wife from the spirit world with such substantiality that he would be able to clasp her in his arms.
When the appointed time came, a slender form, draped in gauze, emerged from the mediumistic cabinet into the darkened séance room, and saluted him with a joyful cry of “Husband!” There was not light enough to see the “spirit’s” face, but he did not for an instant doubt that he was really gazing at his wife, and rose to embrace her. At once the figure vanished, and after the lights were turned up the medium explained that there would have to be a good many “materializations” before the spirit form would be solid enough for him to touch it.
This meant, of course, numerous séances, for which the deluded husband paid handsomely. It also helped to blind him to the true state of affairs, and increased his infatuation to such an extent that when at length the “spirit” submitted to his caresses, it did not seem at all incongruous to find that he was pressing to his breast a flesh-and-blood woman.
The medium now resolved on a bold stroke. Acting under her instruction, the “spirit” bitterly complained one evening that she did not possess any jewelry.
“What!” her “husband” exclaimed. “Do you mean to say that they wear jewelry in the other world?”
“Oh, yes. But nothing to compare with what I had while on earth. What have you done with mine?”