The table faced its executioner. Yet it was rather I who was at bay, ax in hand, awaiting the charge of a fierce beast of prey: and for once the levity of my insouciant friends was absent from their contemplation of a grotesque spectacle.
The fire in the grate crackled in merry anticipation.
"Get it done and over with, Val," whispered Mark.
The ax flickered upward . . . and then I paused at the crest of the stroke, halted by an insistent pounding at my front door. Someone was demanding admittance: and that prosaic fact dispelled the tensity of the preceding instant, and made it seem very absurd to stand, ax in hand, anticipating the leap of a hand-carved table.
"Let him in, Mark," I commanded; and I lowered the ax, for it is rather awkward to be caught in the act of assaulting a table in one's drawing-room. I felt somewhat the same relief I would have experienced had I suddenly been allowed to resign a position as the executioner of a human being. The insistent caller was the dealer who had sold me that accursed table.
"Oh, I say, you mustn't," he protested, forgetting his place so far as to lay his hand on my wrist. "Really, sir"
"Now what in thunder is this?" I demanded. "I paid enough for this piece of iniquity, and by God I'll wreck it if I feel like it!"
"We jolly well will!" asserted Paul. "And since you sold it, what have you to say about it, my man?"
"Please, sir, put that ax aside and let me explain," begged the dealer. "It can't hurt you in daylight."
"So you knew all the while"
The shopkeeper squirmed, coughed, and resumed: "Here's fifteen guineas, sir. And consider that I've bought the table."
"Well, how about the damage to my drawing-room?" I demanded. "You wilfully and knowingly sold"
"Yes, sir, I'll confess I did. But I'll adjust that presently, sir. And then, noting that my fingers were again tightening on the ax-helve, "Please don't kill him, sir. I'll"
"Kill him?" gasped Paul. "Really, now, but this is a bit thick. You might"
And thrusting fifteen guineas into my hand, forcing me to relinquish the ax, the dealer set about explaining.
"A short time ago," he began, "I numbered among my friends a certain eminent scientist, Professor William Percival, a Fellow of the Royal Society”—the dealer paused impressively, then continued—"who was deeply interested in all questions pertaining to spiritualism, especially table-turning. It was his theory that the tiltings, rappings, and leapings about, when not due to fraud, were occasioned, not by animal magnetism, as is popularly supposed, but by the spiritual self or ego of someone present being actually thrown or projected into the table."
As the fellow warmed up, he lost his tradesman's manner and became quite the associate of Fellows of the Royal Society.
"He believed that such a feat, usually performed unconsciously, could be performed deliberately and at will, though only by the most intense and powerful concentration. To prove his theory he began experimenting on small objects: books, walking-sticks, newspapers. And after endless attempts, conducted in the dead of the night, between 12 and 3 in the morning, when, owing to the stillness, conditions are most favorable for concentration, he finally succeeded."
"The hell you say!" I interrupted. "Do you mean?"
