“Come now, Rearton,” I entreated. “Let me off if it's to be another talk on spiritualism!”
“Confound it! Why will you persist in calling my beliefs by what to me is the most offensive of names? I recognize the existence of the supernatural. Every intelligent man must.”
“Then, praise heaven, I am not intelligent.”
“I want to ask you this. How much more than you actually see would you be willing to believe?”
“A great deal less,—and even then I question not I'd be pretty well deceived. The evidences of the senses are no evidences at all. They are a cheat ninety-nine times out of a hundred. The testimony of no two witnesses ever tallied exactly, even though they stood side by side looking on the same event.”
“Come, that's a broad statement,” he objected. “Of a very general truth,” I supplemented. “And it holds good from the crucifixion down to the present day, whether the occasion was most momentous or most trivial.”
I was aware that my friend was dabbling in the occult, and if any thing I could say would throw discredit on it I was anxious it should not be left unsaid.
“Look here,” he continued, “supposing I should state to you as a fact susceptible of positive proof, that the future can be made visible to a man.”
“Oh, come!” I interposed. “Let's drop this.”
“No, I can't.” He had become suddenly grave. “I want you to promise me that if I send for you during the next week you will respond to the summons.”