rst place he
isn't human. It is by accident that he is what he is. But it was our
affair entirely, and it was a most wonderfully fortunate thing for us
that it happened. At first it frightened us a little, but we have got
used to it now, and we see the great opportunities that this entirely
unparalleled case will give us. As he is, he is of no earthly good to
anybody. You can't take a man out of the last century and expect him to
get on in any sort of business at the present day. He is too
old-fashioned. He doesn't know how we do things in the year eighteen
eighty-seven. We put this subject to work selling tickets just to keep
him occupied; but he can't even do that. But, as a spirit who can be
materialized or dematerialized whenever we please, he will be of the
greatest value to us. When a spirit has been brought out as strongly as
he has been it will be the easiest thing in the world to do it again.
Every time you bring one out the less trouble it is to make it appear
the next time you want it; and in this case the conditions are so
favorable that it will be absolute business suicide in us if we allow
ourselves to lose the chance of working it. So you see, sir, that we
have marked out our course, and I assure you that we intend to stick to
it."

"And I assure you," said I, rising to go, "that I shall make it my
business to interfere with your wicked machinations."

Mr. Corbridge laughed. "You'll find," he said, "that we have turned this
thing over pretty carefully, and we are ready for whatever the courts
may do. If we are charged with making away with anybody, we can, if we
like, make him appear, alive and well, before judge and jury. And then
what will there be to say against us? Besides, we are quite sure that no
laws can be found against bringing beings from the other world, or
sending them back into it, provided it can be proved by the subject's
admission, or in any other manner, that he really died once in a natural
way. You cannot be tried for causing a man's death a second time."

I was not prepared to make any answer on this point, but I went away
with a firm resolution to protect Amos Kilbright in the full enjoyment
of his reassumed physical existence, if the power of law, or any other
power, could do it.

The next morning Mr. Corbridge called on me at my office. "I shall be
very sorry," he said, "if any of my remarks of yesterday should cause
unpleasant feelings between us. We are desirous of being on g