"Certainly," said I, "I will do all I can—that is very little. I have not succeeded yet in any attempt I have made. How shall we get the table carried round? Our servants are unfortunately out or engaged."
"Oh, we can carry it ourselves," said Miss Preston, an enthusiast, whom no trifling obstacles daunted; and we passed through the quiet streets of Westbridge carrying the table between us, and amusing ourselves with the curious surprise of the few pedestrians we met, as the full moonlight fell on us and our burden.
At Mrs. Preston's I was successful for the first time. The table quivered, then rocked, then tilted, and at last moved a little this way and that—not much, but just enough to lift from my mind the oppressive feeling of my own inability to do that of which all the men, women, and children in Westbridge seemed to be capable.
When I returned in the evening, I was told that another one of our set of small tea-poys had been borrowed by another neighbor; and for the succeeding fortnight there was little heard or thought of in Westbridge but moving tables. We ran into each other's houses unceremoniously in the evening, and met in little social groups, and our town began to wear another aspect.
But the heresy of involuntary muscular action had arisen in some way. The person who first broached the opinion, abashed perhaps by the indignant disapprobation with which it was received, had shrunk back into silence, but his opinion remained and was gaining ground. The parties began to run high. The people in Westbridge who had performed such wonders with their electric or magnetic force felt called upon to stand their ground and give some convincing proof that they had not all this time been duping themselves.
Those who had lately been devoting themselves to scientific experiments were invited to a soirée at Mrs. Dutton's. A few disbelievers in the science were also asked, that the examination might be carried on fairly and openly.
On entering the drawing-room at Mrs. Dutton's, I found the company already assembled. I saw all the familiar faces I had met so often lately around, not the festive, but the scientific board, and mingled with them were few not so often seen of late. Seated in the place of honor, on the luxurious sofa, were two stout and stately dowagers, guarding between them their niece, Edith Floyd, a lovely, blooming little beauty of sixteen, with brown eyes and fair hair falling in soft curls on either side of her face. Nearly opposite to her, and leaning against a door, stood Reginald Archer, a young Virginian, at that time a student at the college in Westbridge.
It was a rare event to meet a college student in the society of the place, for so many of them had acted the part of the false young knight "who loves and who rides away," that they had been for some time laboring under a kind of polite ostracism. But Mr. Archer had connections in the town, which fact accounted for his exception from the social banishment to which his companions were doomed. The first sight of Edith Floyd had so captivated him, that ever since he had been trying, but trying in vain, to obtain an introduction to her. She was so carefully watched and secluded by her two guardians, that this was the first evening that Mr. Archer had found himself in the same room with her. Even then he did not feel equal to encountering her imposingly dignified aunts, and stood waiting for a more favorable opportunity of forming her acquaintance.
Moving about from one group to another, talking in an excited, earnest way, was Mr. Harrison, the only man in all Westbridge who had expressed an utter disbelief in the whole movement from the first to the last. Even the idea of involuntary or unconscious muscular action was scouted at by him. There had not been a table moved in the town, he said, which had not been done by some person who was perfectly conscious of what he or she was doing. He would not reason nor listen to reason on the subject. It was too purely absurd, he said, for argument. He never entered a room where it was going on without being thrown out of all patience, and yet he haunted the tables and the groups around them, as if he found some strange fascination about them, talking, jesting, and inveighing at our ridiculous credulity, and doing his utmost to stem the tide that was so strong against him. But it was all to no purpose. Mrs. Dutton said, in her oracular way, that "Mr. Harrison had no faith, and faith was the key to knowledge."
Though thus summarily disposed of, he fought on still, not a whit discouraged by his want of success or the little credit he gained for himself.