He informed
us that it always said first "No," and then "Yes," when it was
angry, and as it was his Spirit, and we were in his house, we kept
our feelings to ourselves and started afresh.
This time we abandoned the "Hestur" theory altogether. Jobstock
suggested "Haste" for the first word, and, thought the Spirit might
have gone on phonetically.
"Haste! you are here, Miss Sfear!" was what he made of it.
Whibley asked him sarcastically if he'd kindly explain what that
meant.
I think Jobstock was getting irritable. We had been sitting
cramped up round a wretched little one-legged table all the
evening, and this was almost the first bit of gossip we had got out
of it. To further excuse him, it should also be explained that the
gas had been put out by Whibley, and that the fire had gone out of
its own accord. He replied that it was hard labour enough to find
out what the thing said without having to make sense of it.
"It can't spell," he added, "and it's got a nasty, sulky temper.
If it was my spirit I'd hire another spirit to kick it."
Whibley was one of the mildest little men I ever knew, but chaff or
abuse of his Spirit roused the devil in him, and I feared we were
going to have a scene.
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