in setting down.
I was now eager to secure a complete phrase of the music. I saw myself
establishing, at the least, the most beautiful case of mind-tapping on
record. 'If we can secure the score of an unpublished manuscript of
Alexander's composition we shall have worked a miracle,' I said to
Blake.

"Our first sitting, which took place in the home of a common friend, was
mixed as to results; but the second, which we held in Mrs. Hartley's
study one bright morning, was very fruitful. The 'powers' started in at
once as if to confound us both. Blake received a message written on a
slate under his foot, and I got the name '_Jessie_,' with the word
'_sister_' written beneath it; and then suddenly the whispers changed in
character. The words became swift, impetuous, imperious. '_Line off all
the leaves of a slate_,' the voice commanded. I understood at once, for
in the previous sitting 'E. A.' had seemingly found it difficult to draw
a long line.

"We had brought some silicon slates of the book variety, and Blake now
proceeded to rule one of them with the lines of a musical staff, and on
these slates, held as before beneath the table, we began to get bars of
music of a character quite outside the knowledge of the psychic and
myself; and, more remarkable still, the whispers, so the psychic
informed us, were no longer from 'Dr. Cooke'; 'E. A.,' she declared,
was there in person and directing the work.

"Furthermore, the requests that we now received were entirely different
in character from 'Cooke's' impersonal remarks. The whispers were quick
and masterful, wonderfully like 'Alexander' in content. 'He' was
humorous; 'he' acknowledged mistakes in the score, calling them '_slips
of the pen_.' 'He' became highly technical in his conversation with
Blake, talking of musical matters that were Greek to me and, I venture
to say, Coptic to the psychic. 'He' corrected the notations himself,
sometimes when Blake held the slate, sometimes when I held it. Part of
the time 'he' indicated the corrections orally. 'He' asked Blake to try
the air.

"At last 'he' broke off, and imperiously said: '_Take the table to the
piano._' This seemed to surprise the psychic, but she acquiesced, and we
moved the small stand and our slates down to the little parlor; and
there, with Blake now holding the slate beneath the table and now
playing the notes upon the piano, the score grew into a weird little
melody with bass accompaniment, which seemed to me