beyond
all doubt. He said so at every conversation. But I have noticed that
feeble-minded people are often happy. He said, too, that he was glad to
be where he was; and on the whole I felt glad that he was too. Once or
twice I thought that possibly Great-grandfather felt so happy because he
had been drinking: his voice, even across the great gulf, seemed somehow
to suggest it. But on being questioned he told me that where he was
there was no drink and no thirst, because it was all so bright and
beautiful. I asked him if he meant that it was "bone-dry" like Kansas,
or whether the rich could still get it? But he didn't answer.

Our intercourse ended in a quarrel. No doubt it was my fault. But
it _did_ seem to me that Great-grandfather, who had been one of the
greatest English lawyers of his day, might have handed out an opinion.

The matter came up thus: I had had an argument--it was in the middle of
last winter--with some men at my club about the legal interpretation of
the Adamson Law. The dispute grew bitter.

"I'm right," I said, "and I'll prove it if you give me time to consult
the authorities."

"Consult your great-grandfather!" sneered one of the men.

"All right," I said, "I will."

I walked straight across the room to the telephone and called up the
agency.

"Give me my great-grandfather," I said. "I want him right away."

He was there. Good, punctual old soul, I'll say that for him. He was
there.

"Great-grandfather," I said, "I'm in a discussion here about the
constitutionality of the Adamson Law, involving the power of Congress
under the Constitution. Now, you remember the Constitution when they
made it. Is the law all right?"

There was silence.

"How does it stand, great-grandfather?" I said. "Will it hold water?"

Then he spoke.

"Over here," he said, "there are no laws, no members of Congress and no
Adamsons; it's all bright and beautiful and--"

"Great-grandfather," I said, as I hung up the receiver in disgust, "you
are a Mutt!"

I never spoke to him again. Yet I feel sorry for him, feeble old soul,
flitting about in the Illimitable, and always so punctual to hurry to
the telephone, so happy, so feeble-witted and courteous; a better man,
perhaps, take it all in all, than he was in life; lonely, too, it may
be, out there in the Vastness. Yet I never called him up again. He is
happy. Let him stay.

Indeed, my acquaintance with the spirit world might have ended at that
point but for the