d, mandolins played, and small objects were
transported quite in the same fashion as the books were handled during
our own sittings at your house, Miller--in fact, the doings were much
the same in character. A small stand was broken to pieces under the very
eyes of the learned doctors, _and hands hit and teeth bit those whom the
medium did not like_. Each of the machines for registering movement,
though utterly out of reach of Paladino, was operated, and some of these
movements were systematically recorded.

"It was this care, these scrupulous and cold-blooded tests, that so
profoundly affected Bottazzi. These men were his friends. He knew their
level-headed and remorseless accuracy. The fact that they considered the
whole investigation biologic in character, and that the results of their
experiments strengthened their theory of the physiological determinism
of the phenomena, added to his eagerness to try for himself."

"Wait a moment," said Cameron. "What do you mean by 'physiological
determinism'?"

"He means that the phenomena began and ended in the psychic's organism."

"Do you intend to convey that they considered the medium dishonest?"

"Oh no. Merely that they did not relate the phenomena to the
intervention of the spirits of the dead."

"Oh!" gasped Mrs. Cameron.

"Merely!" exclaimed Harris. "'Merely' is good in that case."

"'After reading these articles with avidity,' Bottazzi's report begins:
'Professor Galeotti, my associate, and I looked at each other astounded,
and the same thoughts in the same words came simultaneously to our lips:
"We, too, must see, must touch with our hands--and at once--here in this
laboratory where experiments of the phenomena of life are daily carried
on, with the impartiality of men whose object is the discovery of
scientific truth, here in this quiet place where sealed doors will be
superfluous. Everything must be registered. Will the medium be able to
impress a photographic plate? Will she be able to illuminate a screen
treated with platino-cyanide of barium? Will she be able to discharge a
gold-leaf electroscope without touching it?" And so we travelled on the
wings of imagination, always having before us the plummet of the
strictest scientific methods.'"

"Now you're getting into my horizon," said Miller. "That is the way I
wished to proceed in Mrs. Smiley's case. Did Bottazzi get these things
done?"

"You're as impatient as Miss Brush," I replied, highly amused at h