was raised that I should be carried around in triumph and afterwards
initiated into the observance of a time-honoured custom. Although it
had now become doubtful to what end the adventure was really tending,
this person would have submitted himself agreeably to the
participation had not the blue-apparelled band cleft their way into
the throng just as I was about to be borne off in triumph, and forming
themselves into a ringed barrier around me they presently succeeded in
rearranging the contending elements and in restoring me to the society
of my friends. To these persons they complained with somewhat
unreasoning acrimony that I had been exciting the inmates into a state
of rebellion with wild imaginings, and for the first time I then began
to understand that an important error had been perpetrated by some
one, and that instead of being a meeting-place for those upholding the
wisdom and authority of the country, the building was in reality an
establishment for the mentally defective and those of treacherous
instincts.

For some time after this occurrence I failed to regard the subject of
demons and allied Forces in any but a spirit of complete no
enthusiasm, but more recently my interest and research have been
enlarged by the zeal and supernatural conversation of a liberal-minded
person who sought my prosaic society with indefatigable persistence.
When we had progressed to such a length that the one might speak of
affairs without the other at once interposing that he himself had also
unfortunately come out quite destitute of money, this stranger, who
revealed to me that his name was Glidder, but that in the company of a
certain chosen few he was known intimately as the Keeper of the
Salograma, approached me confidentially, and inquired whether we of
our Central Kingdom were in the habit of receiving manifestations from
the spirits of those who had Passed Beyond.