“Why, you see, as Shakespeare says, there are more bubbles between heaven and earth than are dreamt of by the philosophers,” observed the doctor with a little paraphrase. “I wish to live at peace with my neighbours; and I’d advise you to think over this subject, old fellow, and not to tease the old lady up stairs about it—that’s all.”
“I wish he’d speak out, and tell me what happened to-night, and tell me his real opinion,” thought William Maubray. “I’ve read in some old medical book,” he continued aloud, “that the vital electricity escapes and diffuses itself at the finger-tips.”
“Oh, to be sure! All sorts of theories. The hand’s a very mysterious organ. The hand of glory, you may be certain, was not altogether a story. The electric light has been seen at the finger-tips in consumptive cases in the dark; and a patient convulsed, or in a state of extreme nervous exhaustion, will clench the hand so as to prevent the escape of this influence at the finger-points, and then joining hands, in love, you know, or friendship—and in fact it is, Sir, a very mysterious organ; and I’m prepared to believe a great deal that’s curious about its occult powers. Your aunt told you about the toad she saw climb over her coverlet one night, and turn into a hand and grasp her wrist.”
“No,” said William.
“Egad, she’s ready to swear to it. Last winter she was so frightened, she was not fit to stand for a week after. She reads too much of those books. Egad, Sir, she’ll turn her head, and that will be the end of it. However, we’ve pulled her through this, and I hope she’ll give it up, true or false. You see, there’s no good in it; and if she goes on, sooner or later she’ll frighten herself out of her wits.”
“But that toad was a very curious idea,” said William. “What does she make of it? Does she think it was a fancy only, or a real thing?”
“Pooh! A spirit of course. She calls it the key-spirit that unlocks the spirit-world, you see; and from the time it touches you, you are in rapport with the invisible world, and subject, as she says she is, to their visitations, you see—ha, ha, ha!”
William laughed too.
“Last winter?” he said. “She never told me.”
“Pooh! All fancies,” observed the doctor. “Better she should not talk of them. Those American people are all going mad. She’ll get touched in the upper story if she does not mind.”