hands grew heavy as lead, and lay
perfectly limp and dead in their bonds.

Again following the guidance of the raps, Fowler and I moved back and
sat opposite her, with Mrs. Fowler between us. "Maudie" then spoke from
the psychic's lips, asking us to move the table farther away. This I
did, leaving it at least twelve inches from the utmost tips of her
fingers. "Maudie" then asked us to take up the larger half of the cone
and unite it with the smaller part, and lay the entire cone flat across
the table.

We did so, marking its position by means of chalk. It was nearly three
feet from the utmost extension of the psychic's hands, and yet, almost
immediately, tapping came upon the cone keeping time to our singing.
Later, sounds were produced like the beating of a kettle-drum. A
hammering was then carried on as if within the cone, and "Maudie" spoke,
telling us to go down and get supper, as before.

I regretted this necessity very much, for up to this moment all had been
clear sailing; the tapping on the cone was inexplicable on the basis of
any normal action of the psychic; but to leave her alone, even while so
well accounted for, weakened the test.

I said as much to Fowler as we sat at the dinner-table. He admitted his
own disappointment. "However," he added, philosophically, "we have to
take these things as they offer. We can't construct them."

We discussed the implications of the sittings we had already held. "It
isn't one thing only," he reminded me; "it is because of the larger fact
that one phenomenon supports another that one comes to believe. Thus far
to-night we have _proved_ that Mrs. Smiley is not concerned with the
drumming on the cone, haven't we?"

"Yes; but I want to hold her hands while the drumming takes place. I
want to hear her voice at the same time with 'Mitchell's.'"

"We'll get it," he responded, confidently. And a little later we
returned to the room where our psychic was sitting, still in deep
trance.

After some moments of waiting, "Maudie" said: "Mr. Mitchell says take
the table away and put the cone in its place."

We moved the table a short distance to the left, and I put the cone in
the centre of the rug where the table had stood, and marked the position
of the cone. The psychic then passed through a period of suffering, of
effort, but nothing took place. Again "Maudie" spoke, asking us to
restore the table and cone to their former positions. "Evidently the
experiment designed by '