I had been relating a somewhat curious experience of my own.  I met a man in the Strand one day that I knew very well, as I thought, though I had not seen him for years.  We walked together to Charing Cross, and there we shook hands and parted.  Next morning, I spoke of this meeting to a mutual friend, and then I learnt, for the first time, that the man had died six months before.

The natural inference was that I had mistaken one man for another, an error that, not having a good memory for faces, I frequently fall into.  What was remarkable about the matter, however, was that throughout our walk I had conversed with the man under the impression that he was that other dead man, and, whether by coincidence or not, his replies had never once suggested to me my mistake.

As soon as I finished, Jephson, who had been listening very thoughtfully, asked me if I believed in spiritualism “to its fullest extent.”

“That is rather a large question,” I answered.  “What do you mean by ’spiritualism to its fullest extent’?”

“Well, do you believe that the spirits of the dead have not only the power of revisiting this earth at their will, but that, when here, they have the power of action, or rather, of exciting to action?  Let me put a definite case.  A spiritualist friend of mine, a sensible and by no means imaginative man, once told me that a table, through the medium of which the spirit of a friend had been in the habit of communicating with him, came slowly across the room towards him, of its own accord, one night as he sat alone, and pinioned him against the wall.  Now can any of you believe that, or can’t you?”

“I could,” Brown took it upon himself to reply; “but, before doing so, I should wish for an introduction to the friend who told you the story.  Speaking generally,” he continued, “it seems to me that the difference between what we call the natural and the supernatural is merely the difference between frequency and rarity of occurrence.  Having regard to the phenomena we are compelled to admit, I think it illogical to disbelieve anything we are unable to disprove.”

“For my part,” remarked MacShaughnassy, “I can believe in the ability of our spirit friends to give the quaint entertainments credited to them much easier than I can in their desire to do so.”

“You mean,” added Jephson, “that you cannot understand why a spirit, not compelled as we are by the exigencies of society, should care to spend its evenings carrying on a laboured and childish conversation with a room full of abnormally uninteresting people.”

“That is precisely what I cannot understand,” MacShaughnassy agreed.

“Nor I, either,” said Jephson.  “But I was thinking of something very different altogether.  Suppose a man died with the dearest wish of his heart unfulfilled, do you believe that his spirit might have power to return to earth and complete the interrupted work?”