An envelope has four flaps. Three of these are stuck together in manufacture, but with a much less adhesive sort of gum than that which is put on the remaining flap to be stuck up by the user.
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| Envelope, inside view. | Outside view, showing insertion. |
It is generally quite easy to insert a penknife behind the bottom flap, as in the accompanying cut, and so make entrance and exit for a slip of paper. On this slip you write the words backwards, as they would appear in a looking-glass, using a black pencil of the “copying” kind. You then pass the slip in, push and shake it into the right position, press till you feel sure the inside flaps have taken the impression, and then out with your slip by the door it came in at. Moisten and fix the flap again, and the “precipitation” is complete. A child can do it.
A Mahatma, of course, produces the result by mere psychic effort. But it is a curious coincidence that M on this occasion abandoned his usual red pencil for the black one which you or I would use if we were playing just the trick described.
No doubt he felt that a more satisfactory test would have been wasted on Mrs. Besant.
Others, however, were a little more exacting. The story enters here on a less smooth course.
