The substance and pith of his argument are summed up in the following:
"Hume laughed and chuckled at real, genuine phenomena (the production of which have brought us well nigh into the Chohan's disgrace) — only and solely because the manifestations were not sketched by himself, nor were they produced in his honour or for his sole benefit. And now let him feel happy and proud over mysterious manifestations of his own making and creation. Let him taunt Sinnett in the depths of his own proud heart, and even by throwing out hints to others — that even he, Sinnett, was hardly so favoured. No one has ever attempted a deliberate deception, nor would anyone be permitted to attempt anything of the sort. Everything was made to follow its natural, ordinary course. Fern is in the hands of two clever — 'dwellers of the threshold' as Bulwer would call them — two dugpas kept by us to do our scavengers' work, and to draw out the latent vices — if there be any — from the candidates; and Fern has shown himself on the whole, far better and more moral than he was supposed to be. Fern has done but what he was ordered to do; and he holds his tongue because it is his first duty. As to his posing with Hume, and attitudinizing before himself and others as a seer, since he has brought himself to believe it, and that it is but certain details that can be really called a fiction, or to put it less mildly fibs — there is no real harm done but to himself. Hume's jealousy and pride will ever be in the way to prevent him swallowing truth as much as ornamental fiction; and Sinnett is shrewd enough to sift very easily Fern's realities and dreams. . . . Why then, should I, or you or any one else" concludes M. — "offer advice to one who is sure not to accept it, or, which will be still worse, in case he learns for a certainty that he has been permitted to make a fool of himself — is still more sure to become an irreconcilable enemy to the Society, the Cause, the much suffering Founders and all. Let him, then, strictly alone. . . . He will not be thankful for undeceiving him. On the contrary. He will forget that no one is to be blamed but himself; that no one had ever whispered him one word that could have led him into his extra delusions; but will turn more fiercely than ever on those chaps — the adepts — and he will call them publicly impostors, jesuits and pretenders. You (I) gave him one genuine pukka phenomenon — and that ought to satisfy him as to the possibility of everything else."
Such is M.'s reasoning; and were I not indirectly mixed in the quid pro quo — it would be also mine. But now, owing to the plants of that little double-dealing monkey — Fern, I am compelled to disturb you for a friendly advice, since our ways are not your ways — and vice versa.
But now see what happened. Hume has lately received a good many letters from me; and I hope you will kindly follow with me the fate and various fortunes of three of them, ever since he began to receive them in a direct way. Try also, to well understand the situation and to thus realize my position. Since we had three chelas at Simla, — two regular ones and one an irregular one — the candidate Fern, I conceived the unfortunate idea of saving power, of economizing as though I had a "Savings bank." To tell truth, I sought to separate as much as it was possible under the circumstances the suspected "Headquarters" from every phenomenon produced at Simla; hence from the correspondence that passed between Mr. Hume and myself. Unless H.P.B., Damodar, and Deb — were entirely disconnected, there was no saying what might, or might not, happen. The first letter — the one found in the conservatory — I gave to M. to have it left at Mr. H.'s house by one of the two regular chelas. He gave it to Subba Row — for he had to see him on that day; S.R. passed it in the ordinary way (posted it) to Fern, with instructions to either leave it at Mr. Hume's house, or to send it to him through post, in case he were afraid that Mr. H. should ask him — since Fern could not, had not the right to answer him and thus would be led to telling an untruth. Several times D.Kh. had tried to penetrate into Rothney Castle, but suffered each time so acutely that I told him to give it up. (He is preparing for initiation and might easily fail as a consequence). Well, Fern did not post it but sent a friend — his dugpa — to leave it at the house and the latter placed it in the conservatory about 2 a.m. This was half of a phenomenon but H. took it for an entire thing, and got very mad when M. refused as he thought to take up his answer in the same way. Then I wrote to console him, and told him as plainly as I could say, without breaking M.'s confidence in relation to Fern that D.K. could do nothing for him, at present, and that it was one of Morya's chelas that had placed the letter there, etc., etc. I believe the hint was quite broad enough and no deception practised? The second letter, I think, was thrown on his table by Dj. Khool (the real spelling of whose name is Gjual, but not so phonetically) and, as it was done by himself it was a pukka orthodox phenomenon and Hume has no need to complain. Several were sent to him in various ways — and he may be sure of one thing: however ordinary the means by which the letters reached him, they could not be but phenomenal in reaching India from Tibet. But this does not seem to be taken into any consideration by him. And now we come to the really bad part of it, a part for which I blame entirely M. for permitting it and exonerate Fern, who could not help it.