Van Maarden was
the greatest scholar in the Mystic, the Occult, the Spiritualistic that
I have ever met. He claimed to be able to go out of the body at will and
see what any friend was up to at any time, in any out-of-the-way place
in the world....
When I jested that such a faculty might sometimes prove embarrassing to
his friends, he laughed and slapped me on the back.
* * * * *
Dineen was a queer little chap. He roomed de luxe at the Bellman House.
One night, during a cyclone that swept the town and the adjacent
country, a fragment of roof was lifted off the hostelry in which he
dwelt. The women-servants and waitresses were thrown into a panic. One,
who collapsed on a lounge in the upstairs hall, swore that Dineen had
felt of her leg as she lay there. A scandal was started. I know that
Dineen, in his European fashion, was free with his hands, when he meant
no harm. He had merely laid his hand on the girl's leg, in friendly
fashion, and asked if she was hurt.
But the nasty Puritan mind of the community went to work, and the story
was hawked about that Professor Dineen, taking advantage of the cyclone,
had tried to "feel the girl up."
This, and the fact that he had been a friend of mine (after my
forthcoming scandal it counted strongly against him) later effected in
his being requested to resign from the faculty.
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