PETER.  No, Andrew, no, positively, no.  I refuse.  Don’t count upon me for any assistance in your spook tests.

DR. MACPHERSON.  And how many times do you think you’ve been a spook yourself?  You can’t tell me that man is perfect; that he doesn’t live more than one life; that the soul doesn’t go on and on.  Pshaw!  The persistent personal energy must continue, or what is God? [CATHERINE has re-entered with another cup, saucer and plate which she sets on the table, and pours out the coffee.

CATHERINE. [Interested.] Were you speaking of—­of ghosts, Doctor?

PETER.  Yes, he has begun again. [To CATHERINE.] You’re just in time to hear it. [To DR. MACPHERSON.] Andrew, I’ll stay behind, contented in this life; knowing what I have here on earth, and you shall die and return with your—­ha!—­persistent personal whatever-it-is, and keep the spook compact.  Every time a knock sounds, or a chair squeaks, or the door bangs, I shall say, “Sh!  There’s the Doctor!”

CATHERINE. [Noticing a book which the DOCTOR has taken from his pocket, and reading the title.] “Are the Dead Alive?”

DR. MACPHERSON.  I’m in earnest, Peter. I’ll promise and I want you to promise, too.  Understand that I am not a so-called spiritist.  I am merely a seeker after truth. [Puts more sugar in his coffee.

PETER.  That’s what they all are—­seekers after truth.  Rubbish!  Do you really believe such stuff?

DR. MACPHERSON.  I know that the dead are alive.  They’re here—­here—­near us—­close at hand. [PETER, in derision, lifts the table-cloth and peeps under the table—­then, taking the lid off the sugar-bowl, peers into it.] Some of the great scientists of the day are of the same opinion.

PETER.  Bah!  Dreamers!  They accomplish nothing in the world.  They waste their lives dreaming of the world to come.

DR. MACPHERSON.  You can’t call Sir Charles Crookes, the inventor of Crookes Tubes,—­a waster?  Nor Sir Oliver Lodge, the great biologist; nor Curie, the discoverer of radium; nor Doctor Lombroso, the founder of Science of Criminology; nor Doctors Maxwell, deVesme, Richet, Professor James, of Harvard, and our own Professor Hyslop.  Instead of laughing at ghosts, the scientific men of to-day are trying to lay hold of them.  The frauds and cheats are being crowded from the field.  Science is only just peeping through the half-opened door which was shut until a few years ago.

PETER.  If ever I see a ghost, I shall lay violent hands upon it and take it to the police station.  That’s the proper place for frauds.

DR. MACPHERSON.  I’m sorry, Peter, very sorry, to see that you, like too many others, make a jest of the most important thing in life.  Hyslop is right:  man will spend millions to discover the North Pole, but not a penny to discover his immortal destiny.

PETER. [Stubbornly.] I don’t believe in spook mediums and never shall believe in them.