Nonsense Novels | Page 8

you've hit it. At
any rate, let us try; we can but fail."
That night we placed again two of my sovereigns on the table, and
arranged the furniture with the same scrupulous care as before.
Still somewhat doubtful of my own psychic fitness for the work in
which I was engaged, I endeavoured to keep my mind so poised as to
readily offer a mark for any astral disturbance that might be about. The
result showed that it had offered just such a mark. Our experiment
succeeded completely. The two coins had vanished in the morning.
For nearly two months we continued our experiments on these lines. At
times Annerly himself, so he told me, would leave money, often
considerable sums, within reach of the phantasm, which never failed to
remove them during the night. But Annerly, being a man of strict
honour, never carried on these experiments alone except when it proved
impossible to communicate with me in time for me to come.
At other times he would call me up with the simple message, "Q is
here," or would send me a telegram, or a written note saying, "Q needs

money; bring any that you have, but no more."
On my own part, I was extremely anxious to bring our experiments
prominently before the public, or to interest the Society for Psychic
Research, and similar bodies, in the daring transit which we had
effected between the world of sentience and the psycho-astric, or
pseudo-ethereal existence. It seemed to me that we alone had succeeded
in thus conveying money directly and without mediation, from one
world to another. Others, indeed, had done so by the interposition of a
medium, or by subscription to an occult magazine, but we had
performed the feat with such simplicity that I was anxious to make our
experience public, for the benefit of others like myself.
Annerly, however, was averse from this course, being fearful that it
might break off our relations with Q.
It was some three months after our first inter-astral psycho-monetary
experiment, that there came the culmination of my experiences--so
mysterious as to leave me still lost in perplexity.
Annerly had come in to see me one afternoon. He looked nervous and
depressed.
"I have just had a psychic communication from Q," he said in answer to
my inquiries, "which I can hardly fathom. As far as I can judge, Q has
formed some plan for interesting other phantasms in the kind of work
that we are doing. He proposes to form, on his side of the gulf, an
association that is to work in harmony with us, for monetary dealings
on a large scale, between the two worlds."
My reader may well imagine that my eyes almost blazed with
excitement at the magnitude of the prospect opened up.
"Q wishes us to gather together all the capital that we can, and to send
it across to him, in order that he may be able to organise with him a
corporate association of phanograms, or perhaps in this case, one would
more correctly call them phantoids."

I had no sooner grasped Annerly's meaning than I became enthusiastic
over it.
We decided to try the great experiment that night.
My own worldly capital was, unfortunately, no great amount. I had,
however, some 500 pounds in bank stock left to me at my father's
decease, which I could, of course, realise within a few hours. I was
fearful, however, lest it might prove too small to enable Q to organise
his fellow phantoids with it.
I carried the money in notes and sovereigns to Annerly's room, where it
was laid on the table. Annerly was fortunately able to contribute a
larger sum, which, however, he was not to place beside mine until after
I had withdrawn, in order that conjunction of our monetary
personalities might not dematerialise the astral phenomenon.
We made our preparations this time with exceptional care, Annerly
quietly confident, I, it must be confessed, extremely nervous and fearful
of failure. We removed our boots, and walked about on our stockinged
feet, and at Annerly's suggestion, not only placed the furniture as
before, but turned the coal-scuttle upside down, and laid a wet towel
over the top of the wastepaper basket.
All complete, I wrung Annerly's hand, and went out into the darkness.
I waited next morning in vain. Nine o'clock came, ten o'clock, and
finally eleven, and still no word of him. Then feverish with anxiety, I
sought his lodgings.
Judge of my utter consternation to find that Annerly had disappeared.
He had vanished as if off the face of the earth. By what awful error in
our preparations, by what neglect of some necessary psychic
precautions, he had met his fate, I cannot tell. But the evidence was
only too