52 THE LAND OF MISTletters could have been read aloud to them and

thoroughly comprehended.”

“That is generally admitted, is it not?”

“Well, it is a concrete example of it. However, I am down a side-track. What I wanted to say to you is that you must not take Bolsover’s little spirit circus too seriously. It is honest as far as it goes, but it goes a mighty short way. It’s a disease, this phenomena hunting. I know some of our people, women mostly, who buzz around seance rooms continually, seeing the same thing over and over, sometimes real, sometimes, I fear, imitation. What the better are they for that as souls or as citizens or any other way ? No, when your foot is firm on the bottom rung don’t mark time on it, but step up to the next rung and get firm upon that.”

“I quite get your point. But I’m still on the solid ground.”

“Solid!” cried Mervin. “Good Lord ! But the paper goes to press to-day and I must get down to the printer. With a circulation of ten thousand or so we do things modestly, you know — not like you plutocrats of the daily press. I am practically the staff.”

“You said you had a warning.”

“Yes, yes, I wanted to give you a warning.” Mervin’s thin, eager face became intensely serious. “If you have any ingrained religious or other prejudices which may cause you to turn down this subject after you have investigated it, then don’t investigate at all — for it is dangerous.”

“What do you mean — dangerous?”

“They don’t mind honest doubt, or honest criticism, but if they are badly treated they are dangerous.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

“Ah, who are they ? I wonder. Guides, controls, psychic entities of some kind. Who the agents of