Several voices rose in a chorus of protest. "Oh no! Telepathy is real. Why, I've had experiences—"
"There you go!" replied Mrs. Quigg, still in the heat of her opposition. "You will all tell the same story. Your friend was dying in Bombay or Vienna, and his spirit appeared to you, à la Journal of Psychic Research, with a message, at the exact hour, computing difference in time (which no one ever does), and so on. I know that kind of thing—but that isn't telepathy."
"What is telepathy, then?" asked little Miss Brush, who paints miniatures.
"I can't describe a thing that doesn't exist," replied Mrs. Quigg. "The word means feeling at a distance, does it not, professor?"
Harris, a teacher of English, who seldom took a serious view of anything, answered, "I should call it a long-distance touch."
"Do you believe in hypnotism, Dr. Miller?" asked Miss Brush, quietly addressing her neighbor, a young scientist whose specialty was chemistry.
"No," replied he; "I don't believe in a single one of these supernatural forces."
"You mean you don't believe in anything you have not seen yourself," said I.
To this Miller slowly replied: "I believe in Vienna, which I have never seen, but I don't believe in a Vienna doctor who claims to be able to hypnotize a man so that he can smile while his leg is being taken off."