?" is written I know that the
operator at the other end of the line is ready to communicate. When in
the middle of a sentence or a word "gone" or "change" is written, I
understand that the connection is broken, and I must not expect the
completion of that message. When a line like this ---- is drawn, it is
a sign that that sentence is completed or the communication ended. So
with other things. Rhymes are often unexpectedly written, especially
if the "control" professes to be a poet, and they are dashed off so
rapidly that I do not understand their import until the close when I
can read them over. Impromptu rhyming is a feat utterly impossible to
either Mr. U. or myself. Names persistently recur which are unknown to
us. Many different handwritings appear, some of them far superior to
my own. When I first began to get communications I destroyed, in a day
or two after they were written, the slips of paper containing the
writing, but as the developments became more interesting, Mr. U.
suggested that they be preserved for reference. I acted on this
suggestion, and thus in the instances of facts given outside our own
knowledge, I am enabled to give the exact wording of each
communication. Our questions were asked _viva voce_, and as they were
often suggested by what had been previously written, I either at the
time or soon afterward wrote them just above the reply. I am not,
therefore, trusting at all to memory in the statements I shall make.

A gentleman of this city (whom I will call John Smith, but whose real
name was a more uncommon one) with whom Mr. U. had been acquainted
many years, but of whose family relations he knew little, died here
more than a year ago. Mr. U. had met him but once in the year previous
to his death, he having been away on account of failing health,
staying, we understood, with a daughter recently married, whose home
was in Florida. The first name of this married daughter, or of any of
Mr. Smith's daughters except one, was unknown to Mr. U. I had met one
of his daughters whose name I knew to be Jennie. I also knew that
there was another named Violet. I was not sure, however, whether this
was the name of the married one, or of another unmarried, but had the
impression that Violet was unmarried. One evening, while waiting for
automatic writing with no thought of Mr. Smith in my mind, and Mr. U.
sitting near me at the table with his thoughts concentrated on an
article he was preparing, this was writte