Fancy crying
like that! It was--yes--_abandon_. But what can one do?"
She paused. Lewisham was walking along, looking straight before him,
lost in some grim argument with himself.
"It makes me think of Sludge the Medium," she said.
He made no answer.
She glanced at him suddenly. "Have you read Sludge the Medium?"
"Eigh?" he said, coming back out of infinity. "What? I beg your pardon.
Sludge, the Medium? I thought his name was--it _was_--Chaffery."
He looked at her, clearly very anxious upon this question of fact.
"But I mean Browning's 'Sludge.' You know the poem."
"No--I'm afraid I don't," said Lewisham.
"I must lend it to you," she said. "It's splendid. It goes to the
very bottom of this business."
"Does it?"
"It never occurred to me before. But I see the point clearly now. If
people, poor people, are offered money if phenomena happen, it's too
much. They are _bound_ to cheat. It's bribery--immorality!"
She talked in panting little sentences, because Lewisham was walking
in heedless big strides. "I wonder how much--such people--could earn
honestly."
Lewisham slowly became aware of the question at his ear. He hurried
back from infinity. "How much they could earn honestly? I haven't the
slightest idea."
He paused.
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