red?"

"In this business everything comes to him who waits," I replied, a tinge
of malice in my voice. "You obtained a few results, Miller a few more;
but Fowler and I, for our pains, reaped the rich reward. By remaining
long on the watch-tower we saw the armies pass. Harmony and patience
are essentials in the production of these marvels. With people yawning
or shuffling about uneasily, results are necessarily unimportant."

Miller continued firm in his agnosticism. "Although puzzling, I cannot
grant so much as even one of the phenomena. Belief in the smallest of
those manifestations at my house would be uprooting to all established
theories of matter--not to mention time and space."

"Were not the notions of Galileo and Darwin also subverting?" asked
Fowler. "Is there anything sacred in error? If we are wrong in our
theories about the universe, let's correct them. You do not stand out
against wireless telegraphy or the Roentgen ray?"

Miller fired at this. "I'm not going to take instruction from a tipping
table or a flying hair-brush!" he fiercely retorted.

"I'll take illumination from any source whatsoever," responded Fowler.

Here I interposed: "The only question that concerns me at this stage is:
Does the table tip and the brush really fly? No physical fact is
trivial, for it stands related to mountains and the clouds."

Fowler's eyes gleamed with contempt. "That's the way of you so-called
scientists: you narrow the mighty fund of occult phenomena down to a
floating feather. As a matter of fact, there is a sea of evidence
accumulated by the investigations of men quite as scientific as Miller,
testimony that is neither petty nor ignoble. It is because you and your
associates are so trifling in methods that the tables and the chair play
leading parts in your drama."

"Good for you!" cheered Brierly. "You're quite right. When these
materialistic investigators get done with trying to prove that
independent slate-writing exists, they'll begin to give some attention
to the fundamental truths of the messages which the slates set forth.
Going after small things, they get small things. If Miller and his like
went forth seeking the essentials of the faith, they would find them
instead of being amazed with foolish tricks of hand."

"Essentials such as what?" interrupted Harris, with snappy suddenness.

"Such as--as--direct spirit communication, a knowledge of the astral,
the reincarnation of souls, and--and--faith i