“Yes, lady,” Hanlon smiled, “but the fake mediums and spirit-raisers, they don’t say they’re frauds—­but they are.”

“Sir, you don’t know what you’re talking about!  Just because there are some tricksters in that, as in all professions, you must not denounce them all.”

“They’re all fakes, lady,” and Hanlon’s air of sincerity carried conviction to all but Aunt Abby.

“How do you know?” she demanded angrily.

“I’ve looked into it—­I’ve looked into all sorts of stunts like these.  It’s in my nature, I guess.  And all professional mediums are frauds.  You bank on that, ma’am!  If you want to tip tables or run a Ouija Board with some honest friends of yours, go ahead; but any man or woman who takes your money for showing you spiritual revelations of any sort, is a fraud and a charlatan.”

“There’s no exception?” asked Embury, quite surprised.

“Not among the professionals.  They wouldn’t keep on in their profession if they didn’t put up the goods.  And to do that, they’ve got to use the means.”

“Why—­why, young man—­” cried Aunt Abby, explosively, “you just read ‘The Voice of Isis’!  You read—­”

“That’s all right, they are plenty of fake books, more, prob’ly, than fake mediums, but you read some books that I’ll recommend.  You read ‘Behind the Scenes With the Mediums,’ or ’The Spirit World Unveiled,’ and see where you’re at then!  No, ma’am, the only good spook is a dead spook, and they don’t come joy-riding back to earth.”

“But,” and Eunice gazed earnestly at her guest, “is there nothing—­nothing at all in telepathy?”

“Now you’ve asked a question, ma’am.  I don’t say there isn’t, but I do say there isn’t two per cent of what the fakers claim there is.  I’ll grant just about two per cent of real stuff in this talk of telepathy and thought-transference, and even that is mostly getting a letter the very day you were thinking about the writer!”

Embury laughed.  “That’s as close as I’ve ever come to it,” he said.

“Yep, that’s the commonest stunt.  That and the ghostly good-by appearance of a friend that’s dyin’ at the time in a distant land.”

“Aren’t those cases ever true?” Eunice asked.

“’Bout two per cent of ’em.  Most of those that have been traced down to actual evidence have fizzled out.  Well, I must be going.  You see, now, I’ve sold this whole spiel that I’ve just given you folks to a big newspaper syndicate, and I got well paid.  That puts me on Easy Street, for the time bein’, and I’m going to practice up for a new stunt.  When you hear again of Willy Hanlon, it’ll be in a very different line of goods!”

“What?” asked Eunice, interestedly.

“’Scuse me, ma’am.  I’d tell you, if I’d tell anybody.  But, you see, it ain’t good business.  I just thought up a new line of work and I’m going to take time to perfect myself in it, and then spring it on a long-sufferin’ public.”