I regretted putting him to so much trouble, but my need was urgent, and I knew that he was a good-natured man. Presently he cried (and I was just getting alarmed about him):
"Certainly," said an old white-haired gentleman, dressed in a sheet, who sat in the rajah's armchair.
"That's all right," said the rajah, getting up and putting on his coat. "You were very difficult."
"We're so busy just now," said Nani-Tal apologetically. "I'm demonstrating three nights a week, and the preparations take all my time."
"Well, you can't have a boom for nothing," said the rajah, smiling.
"I don't complain," said Nani-Tal; "I only mentioned it to excuse myself for keeping you waiting. I was in New York when you began materializing. It's a lively city."
"You must tell him all about it," said the rajah to me; "he won't be very hard on us."
Nani-Tal was, however, rather severe. He said it was too bad of the rajah. How were they to live, if that sort of thing went on? Then he turned to me, and added, "Of course you couldn't manage it. If you'd gone through the course, you would have been all right. But there, it's everything for nothing nowadays!"
"He might have paid the fees anyhow," grumbled Nani-Tal, "and taken correspondence lessons."
We smoothed him down with the promise of a handsome donation, and at last he consented to help us. It was only just in time, for at that very moment I felt my Astral Body uniting. A second later it made a violent effort to project me; of course, it saw Nani-Tal, and knew it was in for it. The old gentleman was too quick for it.
"Come out of that!" he cried imperiously, and the wretch stood in the middle of the room.
It did my heart good to hear Nani-Tal fall on the creature. After giving it no end of a lecture, he concluded, "And now, young man, you'll just go back to your jackal for a thousand years, and learn better manners."
The wretch protested; it asked for an elephant or even a tiger. Nani-Tal was obdurate.
"A jackal will just suit you," he said. "Be off!" The creature vanished. Simultaneously Nani-Tal began to disintegrate.
"I can't. I'm summoned to St. James' Hall. There's a large audience, and the professor has been in convulsions seven minutes."
I tried to grasp his hand in thanks. "If you want another," he said, "you must go through the course--the full course. There's no other way. Let this be a lesson to you." And with this parting remark he disintegrated.