“You see?” said Chaffery, putting his hands under the tail of his coat.  The whole room seemed snapping its fingers at Lewisham for a space.

“Very well, and now take the other side.  Take the severest test I ever tried.  Two respectable professors of physics—­not Newtons, you understand, but good, worthy, self-important professors of physics—­a lady anxious to prove there’s a life beyond the grave, a journalist who wants stuff to write—­a person, that is, who gets his living by these researches just as I do—­undertook to test me.  Test me!...  Of course they had their other work to do, professing physics, professing religion, organising research, and so forth.  At the outside they don’t think an hour a day about it, and most of them had never cheated anybody in their existence, and couldn’t, for example, travel without a ticket for a three-mile journey and not get caught, to save their lives....  Well—­you see the odds?”

He paused.  Lewisham appeared involved in some interior struggle.

“You know,” explained Chaffery, “it was quite an accident you got me—­quite.  The thing slipped out of my mouth.  Or your friend with, the flat voice wouldn’t have had a chance.  Not a chance.”

Lewisham spoke like a man who is lifting a weight.  “All this, you know, is off the question.  I’m not disputing your ability.  But the thing is ... it isn’t right.”

“We’re coming to that,” said Chaffery.

“It’s evident we look at things in a different light.”

“That’s it.  That’s just what we’ve got to discuss.  Exactly!”

“Cheating is cheating.  You can’t get away from that.  That’s simple enough.”

“Wait till I’ve done with it,” said Chaffery with a certain zest.  “Of course it’s imperative you should understand my position.  It isn’t as though I hadn’t one.  Ever since I read your letter I’ve been thinking over that.  Really!—­a justification!  In a way you might almost say I had a mission.  A sort of prophet.  You really don’t see the beginning of it yet.”

“Oh, but hang it!” protested Lewisham.

“Ah! you’re young, you’re crude.  My dear young man, you’re only at the beginning of things.  You really must concede a certain possibility of wider views to a man more than twice your age.  But here’s supper.  For a little while at any rate we’ll call a truce.”

Ethel had come in again bearing an additional chair, and Mrs. Chaffery appeared behind her, crowning the preparations with a jug of small beer.  The cloth, Lewisham observed, as he turned towards it, had several undarned holes and discoloured places, and in the centre stood a tarnished cruet which contained mustard, pepper, vinegar, and three ambiguous dried-up bottles.  The bread was on an ample board with a pious rim, and an honest wedge of cheese loomed disproportionate on a little plate.  Mr. and Mrs. Lewisham were seated facing one another, and Mrs. Chaffery sat in the broken chair because she understood its ways.