lawyer, a practical man of the world, tried to persuade Heaton to
abandon his particular line of research, but without success.

"No good can come of it," said Grey. "India has spoiled you. Men who
dabble too much in that sort of thing go mad. The brain is a delicate
instrument. Do not trifle with it."

"Nevertheless," persisted Heaton, "the great discoveries of the
twentieth century are going to be in that line, just as the great
discoveries of the nineteenth century have been in the direction of
electricity."

"The cases are not parallel. Electricity is a tangible substance."

"Is it? Then tell me what it is composed of? We all know how it is
generated, and we know partly what it will do, but what _is_ it?"

"I shall have to charge you six-and-eightpence for answering that
question," the lawyer had said with a laugh. "At any rate there is a
good deal to be discovered about electricity yet. Turn your attention
to that and leave this Indian nonsense alone."

Yet, astonishing as it may seem, Bernard Heaton, to his undoing,
succeeded, after many futile attempts, several times narrowly escaping
death. Inventors and discoverers have to risk their lives as often as
soldiers, with less chance of worldly glory.

First his invisible excursions were confined to the house and his own
grounds, then he went further afield, and to his intense astonishment
one day he met the spirit of the man who hated him.

"Ah," said David Allen, "you did not live long to enjoy your ill-gotten
gains."

"You are as wrong in this sphere of existence as you were in the other.
I am not dead."

"Then why are you here and in this shape?"

"I suppose there is no harm in telling _you_. What I wanted to
discover, at the time you would not give me a hearing, was how to
separate the spirit from its servant, the body--that is, temporarily
and not finally. My body is at this moment lying apparently asleep in a
locked room in my house--one of the rooms I begged from you. In an hour
or two I shall return and take possession of it."

"And how do you take possession of it and quit it?"

Heaton, pleased to notice the absence of that rancour which had
formerly been Allen's most prominent characteristic, and feeling that
any information given to a disembodied spirit was safe as far as the
world was concerned, launched out on the subject that possessed his
whole mind.

"It is very interesting," said Allen, when he had finished.

And so they parted.