a solicitor
doesn't swindle in the proper shabby-magnificent way, they chuck him
for unprofessional conduct." He paused. He became meditative, and
smiled faintly.

"Now, some of _my_ dodges," he said with a sudden change of voice,
turning towards Lewisham, his eyes smiling over his glasses and an
emphatic hand patting the table-cloth; "some of _my_ dodges are
_damned_ ingenious, you know--_damned_ ingenious--and well worth
double the money they bring me--double."

He turned towards the fire again, pulling at his smouldering pipe, and
eyeing Lewisham over the corner of his glasses.

"One or two of my little things would make Maskelyne sit up," he said
presently. "They would set that mechanical orchestra playing out of
pure astonishment. I really must explain some of them to you--now we
have intermarried."

It took Mr. Lewisham a minute or so to re-form the regiment of his
mind, disordered by its headlong pursuit of Chaffery's flying
arguments. "But on your principles you might do almost anything!" he
said.

"Precisely!" said Chaffery.

"But--"

"It is rather a curious method," protested Chaffery; "to test one's
principles of action by judging the resultant actions on some other
principle, isn't it?"

Lewisham took a moment to think. "I suppose that is so," he said, in
the manner of a man convinced against his will.

He perceived his logic insufficient. He suddenly thrust the delicacies
of argument aside. Certain sentences he had brought ready for use in
his mind came up and he delivered them abruptly. "Anyhow," he said, "I
don't agree with this cheating. In spite of what you say, I hold to
what I said in my letter. Ethel's connexion with all these things is
at an end. I shan't go out of my way to expose you, of course, but if
it comes in my way I shall speak my mind of all these spiritualistic
phenomena. It's just as well that we should know clearly where we
are."

"That is clearly understood, my dear stepson-in-law," said
Chaffery. "Our present object is discussion."

"But Ethel--"

"Ethel is yours," said Chaffery. "Ethel is yours," he repeated after
an interval and added pensively--"to keep."

"But talking of Illusion," he resumed, dismissing the sordid with a
sign of relief, "I sometimes think with Bishop Berkeley, that all
experience is probably something quite different from reality. That
consciousness is _essentially_ hallucination. I, here, and you, and
our talk--it is all Illusion. Bring your