Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences by Frank Richard Stockton
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page 14 of 103 (13%)
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get on in any sort of business at the present day. He is too
old-fashioned. He doesn't know how we do things in the year eighteen eighty-seven. We put this subject to work selling tickets just to keep him occupied; but he can't even do that. But, as a spirit who can be materialized or dematerialized whenever we please, he will be of the greatest value to us. When a spirit has been brought out as strongly as he has been it will be the easiest thing in the world to do it again. Every time you bring one out the less trouble it is to make it appear the next time you want it; and in this case the conditions are so favorable that it will be absolute business suicide in us if we allow ourselves to lose the chance of working it. So you see, sir, that we have marked out our course, and I assure you that we intend to stick to it." "And I assure you," said I, rising to go, "that I shall make it my business to interfere with your wicked machinations." Mr. Corbridge laughed. "You'll find," he said, "that we have turned this thing over pretty carefully, and we are ready for whatever the courts may do. If we are charged with making away with anybody, we can, if we like, make him appear, alive and well, before judge and jury. And then what will there be to say against us? Besides, we are quite sure that no laws can be found against bringing beings from the other world, or sending them back into it, provided it can be proved by the subject's admission, or in any other manner, that he really died once in a natural way. You cannot be tried for causing a man's death a second time." I was not prepared to make any answer on this point, but I went away with a firm resolution to protect Amos Kilbright in the full enjoyment of his reassumed physical existence, if the power of law, or any other |
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