ose would be served by doing so. It is
impossible on these occasions to convince anyone else that you are not
pushing or "muscle moving," or generally playing tricks, and it has
always seemed to me that the time wasted over mutual recriminations on
these points, or the silly jokes that appear inevitable, when two or
three human beings at a table get together in a private house; might be
much more profitably spent.

Table turning as a parlour game is about as stupid and aimless an
amusement as I know. I represented all this to Mr Kitchener, but in
vain. He had attended some psychic meetings in Dunback or Dunedin, and
evidently wished me to reconsider the matter. Also it happened to be the
last day of the year, when people are always more inclined to be
obliging, I suppose; anyway that Saturday night, 31st December 1887,
found me sitting down to a table in the little drawing-room of that
far-away sheep station.

As some reward for any virtue there may have been in yielding my point,
I remembered suddenly that George Eliot's message on 28th October--two
months previously--had been rather vague, and that it might be
interesting, if the chance came, to find out whether "_before another
year has rolled away_" meant a year from 28th October, or the year of
which so few hours still remained to us.

After the usual inanities--"_I am sure you are pushing._" "No; _you_
are! _I saw your fingers pressing heavily._" "_Why, how extraordinary!
that is exactly what I thought about you_," etc. etc., it was intimated
that a spirit was there giving the name of George Eliot, so I put my
question at once.

"I did not mean another year from October last--I referred to this
year," was the answer.

"Shall I be able to write automatically?" was my next query.

"No; leave that alone--it would be very dangerous for you at present."

"Shall I be able to hear? Shall I become clair-audient?"

"No," came for the second time.

My next question naturally was: "Then shall I be able to _see_ very
soon?"

"Yes; for you will become clairvoyant for the first time. Remember my
warning to use but not abuse the gift."

Now I must explain that all this time a good deal of the usual kind of
joking had been going on. Moreover, I felt intuitively that Mr Kitchener
thought I was deceiving myself into the idea that human muscles could
not account for the movements, and, in fact, the very worst possible
conditions for getting anything of value were prese