places [84] where they should not be. I would occasionally find my socks
stuffed tightly into my trousers' pockets, or my razor poised upon a mirror,
when I realized that morning in the bowl of night had flung the stone that
puts the stars to flight, and that the Hunter of the East had caught the Sultan's
Turret in a noose of light. But in the second series of phenomena the faithful
and intelligent animal had done far more than this, bringing into the house
various objects from afar. It was evidently appreciated in the Beyond that a
Poltergeist's reach should exceed his grasp.
"One day, in the wonderful month of May with all its flowers a-blossom,
the planchette produced an exceedingly mysterious message. So far as we
could understand him, he would bring more evidence of his presence. 'Proof'
was one of the words used, I remember; yes, I remember that very distinctly.
And the message ended, with a sudden transition, 'Look out for game!' There
could hardly have been a more superfluous injunction so far as I was
concerned!
"I must now describe my dining-room. It is very like any other room of the
sort, I dare say; the point is that there is a big table, over which is suspended a
cluster of electric lamps, a flat shade covering these from above. The top of
this shade is just about on the level of the eyes of a fairly tall man, standing. I
can see clear over it from the edge of the table without straining.
"Well, we went down to dinner, and the Poltergeist was exceptionally
active all through the meal. The medium was exceedingly distressed by his
insistence on the mysterious injunction to look out for game. It was only at
dessert that the problem was solved. The medium screamed out suddenly,
'Oh! he's pinching my neck!' — and a second later - [85] lightning in a clear
sky — a large quail fell from the empyrean upon my humble mahogany.
"I only wished I could have had Rear Admiral Moore, Sir Oliver Lodge,
Colonel Olcott, Sir Alfred Turner, Mr. A. P. Sinnett, and Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle present on that sublime occasion. There could have been no dissentient
voice to say that this was not 'evidential' — save, possibly, what is negligible,
my own. A poor thing, but mine own!
"I wonder if you have ever reflected upon the halo of excitement and
romance which must gild the lives of the members of the worshipful
Company of Poulterers. They are the true sportsmen of our times; theirs to
beard the turkey in his den, theirs to grapple the lordly pheasant, to close in
deadly combat with the grouse, to wrest the plover's egg from its lonely nest
upon the moors, to dare a thousand deaths in their grim heroism, the