“There’s something in spiritualism, you bet,” drawled the nasal voice of Mr Ray Jefferson. “I’ve had messages written to me, and things said that no third person could possibly have known about.”
“Ah, slate writing,” sneered Mrs Masterman. “I’ve seen that too. Just another trick.”
“How do you explain that?” asked Mrs Jefferson quickly.
“Well, this way. I went to two or three different mediums so as to test them all. I found they had no objections to bringing your own slates and writing your own questions, but while they held the slate under the table they kept you talking to distract your attention, and from time to time they got convulsive jerks and movements by which it was quite possible for them to see what was written. Then you heard a scratching (the medium probably had a little bit of pencil in his finger-nail), and your answer was given you. Well, let that pass for what it’s worth, but I always noticed the medium asked if I wouldn’t like a message, and when I said ‘yes,’ he brought out his own slate.”
“But,” said Mrs Jefferson, “didn’t he let you examine it first?”
“Oh yes, and wiped it over with a damp cloth. Then it was held under the table, and in a few seconds covered with ‘spirit-writing.’ But I found out afterwards that you can buy slates with a false cover, this cover fits within the frame and is exactly like the other side of the slate, but, your spirit-message is already written, a touch makes the cover drop off, the medium covers it with his foot in case you should look under the table, out comes the slate, and there you are!”
“On,” said Mrs Jefferson angrily, “it’s plain you’ve only been to the charlatans and impostors of spiritualism. Why, I’ve had a message written in a locked slate while I held the key and held the slate too. What do you say to that?”
“I’ve only your word for it,” said Mrs Masterman sarcastically. “My slates were never locked.”
“And I’ve only your word for what you’ve told us,” answered Mrs Jefferson with rising wrath. “I suppose my evidence may be as trustworthy.”
“Well,” interposed another voice, “my view of spiritualism is, that it’s an intensely humiliating idea after you’ve done with this world to be at the beck and call of any other human being who can make you go through a variety of tricks, as if you were a performing dog, in order to convince people still in the body that there is another life. If that other life permits us to come back here and play tambourines, and knock furniture about, and write silly and ambiguous messages on slates, I don’t—myself—think it’s a very desirable one.”