Moonchild

he could hardly believe that a quail could have been concealed on [87] the lamp-shade; he would have noticed it, he thought, while laying the table. "The experiments continued. Some time later Brother Poltergeist permitted himself some allusions to fish — in the best possible taste — and I took my precautions accordingly. Before dinner I slipped downstairs and made a thorough search of the dining room. Alas! to what treacheries are the most virtuous of us liable to be subjected? That medium's saucy Sister Second Personality had again betrayed her to a most unjustifiable suspicion! For one dozen prawns, of the best quality, were distributed in most excellent symmetry about the lamp-shade. "A hasty reference to the dictionary not yet published by the Society for Psychical Research assured me that this sort of thing was a 'prepared phenomenon.' "Now, if you are going to prepare a phenomenon, you may as well prepare it properly; and I attended — you shall soon learn how — alike to decency and to asthetics. "Dinner was served; the Poltergeist supplied the conversation. Never before had he been so light, so genial, so anxious to assure us of our future in Summerland; but ever and anon he touched the minor chord, spoke darkly of 'proof,' and of fish! (I beg you all to bear witness that I have not degraded myself by the evident pun). The dessert arrived. And now the Poltergeist was imminent. The lawyer thought to touch him and to hold him; he saw signs of him all over the room; he ran about after him, like a boy with a butterfly-net. But of all this I took no heed; I was watching the lady's face. "Professor Freud would perhaps explain my motive as 'infantile psycho- sexual pre-sexuality'; but no matter: I watched her face. "The lawyer, like what's his name pursuing [88] Priam, was close on the heels of the Poltergeist — 'jam, jam' as used by Vergil in the sense of prolonging the suspense — at last he made one grab in empty air. He overbalanced; must have touched the lamp-shade, I suppose — for a shower of prawns fell upon us like the gentle rain from heaven, blessing both him that gives and him that takes. "And oh! those spirit prawns were beautiful upon the table-cloth; for each had a bunch of blue ribbon, blue ribbon, to tie up its bonny red hair. I had not moved my eyes from that fair lady's face; and I am sorry to conclude this abstract and brief chronicle of the prawn by saying that I cannot swear that she betrayed any guilty knowledge!"