"Now, sir, you would bring our experiment to complete success if you would lay your hand upon the table, and while it is resting there you would yourself dematerialize and return into the medium."
The figure bowed its comprehension and assent. Then it slowly advanced towards the table, stooped over it, extended its hand -- and vanished. The heavy breathing of the medium ceased and he moved uneasily as if about to wake. Maupuis turned on the white light, and threw up his hands with a loud cry of wonder and joy which was echoed by the company.
On the shining wooden surface of the table there lay a delicate yellow-pink glove of paraffin, broad at the knuckles, thin at the wrist, two of the fingers bent down to the palm. Maupuis was beside himself with delight. He broke off a small bit of the wax from the wrist and handed it to an assistant, who hurried from the room.
"It is final!" he cried. "What can they say now? Gentlemen, I appeal to you. You have seen what occurred. Can any of you give any rational explanation of that paraffin mould, save that it was the result of dematerialization of the hand within it?"
"I can see no other solution," Richet answered. "But you have to do with very obstinate and very prejudiced people. If they cannot deny it, they will probably ignore it."
"The Press is here and the Press represents the public," said Maupuis. "For the Press Engleesh, Monsieur Malone," he went on in his broken way. "Is it that you can see any answer?"
"I can see none," Malone answered.
"And you, monsieur?" addressing the representative of the Matin."
The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.
"For us who had the privilege of being present it was indeed convincing," said he, "and yet you will certainly be met with objections. They will not realize how fragile this thing is. They will say that the medium brought it on his person and laid it upon the table."
Maupuis clapped his hands triumphantly. His assistant had just brought him a slip of paper from the next room.
"Your objection is already answered," he cried, waving the paper in the air. "I had foreseen it and I had put some cholesterine among the paraffin in the zinc pail. You may have observed that I broke off a corner of the mould. It was for purpose of chemical analysis. This has now been done. It is here and cholesterine has been detected."
"Excellent!" said the French journalist. "You have closed the last hole. But what next?"
"What we have done once we can do again," Maupuis answered. "I will prepare a number of these moulds. In some cases I will have fists and hands. Then I will have plaster casts made from them. I will run the plaster inside the mould. It is delicate, but it can be done. I will have dozens of them so treated, and I will send them broadcast to every capital in the world that people may see with their own eyes. Will that not at last convince them of the reality of our conclusions?"
"Do not hope for too much, my poor friend," said Richet, with his hand upon the shoulder of the enthusiast. "You have not yet realized the enormous vis inertioe of the world. But as you have said, 'Vous marchez -- vous marchez toujours'."
"And our march is regulated," said Mailey. "There is a gradual release to accommodate it to the receptivity of mankind."
Richet smiled and shook his head.
"Always transcendental, Monsieur Mailey! Always seeing more than meets the eye and changing science into philosophy! I fear you are incorrigible. Is your position reasonable?"
"Professor Richet," said Mailey, very earnestly, "I would beg you to answer the same question. I have a deep respect for your talents and complete sympathy with your caution, but have you not come to the dividing of the ways? You are now in the position that you admit -- you must admit -- that an intelligent apparition in human form, built up from the substance which you have yourself named ectoplasm, can walk the room and carry out instructions while the medium lay senseless under our eyes, and yet you hesitate to assert that spirit has an independent existence.