might say that the joke was so obvious that it never struck him his colleagues would take it seriously; that their evident determination not to spoil sport was an invitation no joker could have resisted; and that he only kept it up so long for the fun of seeing, through a graduated scale of absurdity, how much they really would stand. Of course, to carry through a big practical joke one may be excused a few taradiddles, to which the moralist might apply a harsher name. No doubt some might question the taste of making a friend’s funeral the starting-point of even the most innocent mauvaise plaisanterie. But American humour has never spared the cemetery. ***** From my own position, then, and Mr. Judge’s position, I now pass to Mrs. Besant’s. This is interesting from its bearing on the curious psychological puzzle offered by Mrs. Besant’s own mind, to the study of which she herself continually invites the public. Let us accept the invitation for a moment.
I take Mrs. Besant’s statement at the so-called “Enquiry,” that she believed now that Judge wrote with his own hand the missives which he had induced her, and she had induced the public, to regard as precipitations from Tibet of the kind which “some people would call miraculous.”
Apparently Mrs. Besant considers that this avowal sufficed to clear her honour towards her colleagues and the public whom she had “misled.” To me it appears admirably calculated to mislead them again. Remember, even those whom Mrs. Besant was addressing—much more the outside public—were ignorant of the facts. Mrs. Besant had taken good care of that.
They did not know, as the reader does, the circumstances which surrounded these various missives: The “Master Agrees” missive, the Telegram missive, the Cabinet missive, the “Note the Seal,” the “Judge’s Plan is Right,” the “Judge is the Friend,” the Envelope Trick, the “Withold,” the “Master will Provide,” the Bank-note, the Inner Group, the “Grave Danger Olcott,” the “Judge is not the Forger,” the “Follow Judge and Stick,” and the Poison Threat
