"How odd!" exclaimed Athalie, kneeling to see better.
What she saw was a cupboard lined with asbestos, and an elaborate electric switchboard set with keys from which innumerable insulated wires radiated, entering tubes that disappeared in every direction.
"What are all these for?" she asked, rising to her feet.
"Dearie, I've got to be honest with you. This here lady was a meejum."
"A—what?"
"A meejum."
"What is that?"
"Why don't you know, dearie? She threw trances for twenty per. She seen things. She done stunts with tables and tambourines and accordions. Why this here place is all wired and fixed up between the walls and the ceiling and roof and the flooring, too. There is chimes and bells and harmonicas and mechanical banjos under the flooring and in the walls and ceiling. There's a whispering phonograph, too, and something that sighs and sobs. Also a machine that is full of singing birds that pipe up just as sweet and soft and natural as can be.
"On rainy days you can amuse yourself with them keys; I don't like to fool with them myself, being nervous with a weak back and my vittles not setting right and all like that—" Again she ran down from sheer lack of breath.