“Stop,” George said.
Imolatty gave him a puzzled look. “Why did you stop me?” he said. “It is dark inside. It is painted black. I don’t permit flash cameras.”
“Not that,” George Mills said, “the stuff about bright light making ex — exto—”
“Ectoplasm.”
“Ectoplasm seep out.”
“Excellent!” Imolatty exclaimed. “He’s very smart, isn’t he, Sylvia?” He turned to George. “You’re absolutely right. We keep it dark for other reasons. Light has nothing to do with it. What would happen to ectoplasm in the daytime if it did? What would happen when the sun rises, or even at night during an electrical storm? Let’s go in then.”
It was very hot in the dim room. “Thank you, Sylvia,” Imolatty said when the woman had flicked on the wall switch. He looked toward George again. “I couldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been for my wife’s cooperation. Sylvia’s support has been invaluable,” he said.
“It’s long been acknowledged,” he went on, “that the ancients sought the so-called philosopher’s stone in order to transmute base metals into gold. What is perhaps less well known is that the alchemists’ researches drew them down other paths of the physical sciences and metaphysical arts. On this table, ladies and gentlemen, you may see some of the results of their experiments with crude, or secondary, ectoplasm. Naturally, I don’t pretend that these masses you see before you are the original work of those early experimenters. It would be remarkable indeed if such flimsy stuff endured over long centuries while whole cities have faded from the face of the earth, but — Did you say something, George?”
“No.”
“You didn’t? All right then. — but their writings have been preserved and are available to anyone who will simply take the trouble to look for them in our great public libraries. Working then from their original formulas, Sylvia and me have been able to duplicate their results in our lab. The three piles in front of me are various forms of crude, or secondary ectopl—”
“Stop.”
“George?”
“They’re not.”
“Not what?”
“Ectoplasm.”
“What are they?”
“I don’t know. They’re not crude ectoplasm.”
“Cobwebs! They’re cobwebs, George! Ordinary cobwebs! All scrunched and rolled like a fine, thin dough. Do you remember, Sylvia, how we collected this stuff?”
“Oh, those filthy rooms!” Mrs. Imolatty said.
“They were dirty.”
“The rubbish was all over my dress, in my hair, everywhere.”
“It was a mess all right,” Imolatty admitted. He turned back to George. “Good for you, George!” he congratulated him. “You’re not letting me get away with a thing. You’re a clever boy. The alchemists never experimented with ectoplasm. No, they were too greedy. I doubt if they gave a thought to ectoplasm.
“That low box on your right, the object rather like a foot bath at a public swimming pool, is a sort of ‘planter’ for ectoplasm. The woolly, grayish substance you see there — just a minute, George — is not itself ectoplasm, but is latent with a dormant form of ectoplasm which may sometimes be released through the process of agitation or ‘bruising’. Watch the planter. Look closely now.”
Imolatty stepped into the box and began a silent shuffle in place.
“Stop.” George said.
“Are you watching closely?” Imolatty said. “Can you see what’s happening?” he asked breathlessly.
A silverish froth had begun to bubble up in the ectoplasm planter, a queer chalk brew.
“Stop!” George cried. “Stop!”
“There,” Imolatty said. “You may try it yourselves, ladies and gentlemen.”
“I told you to stop,” George said.
“So you did. Why?”
“Because it’s not true.”
“What’s not true, George?”
“Everything. It’s not true that stuff’s ectoplasm.”
“Brillo pads, George! Soaped Brillo pads! I wear crepe soles moistened beforehand. That’s very good, George. The folks on the tour never catch on.”
“What if they touch it?” George Mills asked angrily. “Supposing they touch it?”
“Isn’t he smart, Sylvia? He’s smart as a whip. ‘Better let it calm down, folks,’ I say. ‘Agitated ectoplasm’s dangerous, too hot to handle.’ ”
“Stop!” George said.
“Caught out again, by golly!” Imolatty said. “Right you are, George. It isn’t too hot. All right, ladies and gentlemen, suppose we turn our attention to some of the museum’s major acquisitions.”
He led George and the woman through the black, hot room, not a guide now, a curator, with the curator’s furious pride, his curious, almost fanlike, supportive stake, his enthusiasm intimate reciprocity between speaker and topic, scholar and subject. He revealed background, rattled off commentary, footnote, marginalia, joyous gloss — all enthusiasm’s inside information, George Mills all the while muttering then practically shouting, “Stop, Stop! Stop!”
“Yes? Was there a question, George?”
“That glass case is empty. There’s nothing in it.”
“Yes?” Imolatty said.
“You said it’s pure ectoplasm.”
“Pure primary ectoplasm. Yes?”
“It’s empty.”
“No, George. I’m afraid you shouldn’t have stopped me that time. I get that one.”
“There’s nothing there.”
“Nothing but pure primary ectoplasm, no.”
“I can’t see it.”
“That’s right. Because it’s pure. It doesn’t have that faint yellowish cast primary ectoplasm sometimes gets. Do you remember, Sylvia, that batch we had once?” He turned back to George. “We’d gone after some stuff — incidentally, ‘stuff’ isn’t slang in this instance but a perfectly acceptable, even scientific, term for primary ectoplasm — to bring back to the museum. This was in the early days and we didn’t always understand what we were doing. We set out before breakfast and had gathered the ectoplasm before noon—”
“Oh, Clement,” the woman said, “you’re not going to tell that story, are you? The boy will think we’re fools. I declare, whenever Clement wants to embarrass me he trots this story out.”
“We were kids, Sylvia. What did we know? Besides, I was as much the goat as you were. Anyway, to make a long story short, we’d collected all that we needed—”
“More than we needed.”
“All right,” Imolatty said. “More than we needed. As it turned out more than we needed. Our mistake, you see, was to gather the stuff while it was still light. You can’t see the yellow cast of impure primary during the day. It just looks like more sunlight.”
“Stop,” George said lamely.
“It’s true,” Imolatty said. “It just bleeds into the sunshine. It’s like trying to show movies outdoors on a bright afternoon.”
“Stop,” he said mechanically.
“I’ll never forget it,” Mrs. Imolatty said.
“Stop,” George told the woman.
“Sylvia trying to drain off that yellow cast,” Imolatty said, “running it through her sifter like it was a cup of flour.”