At this point he interpolated an offensive expression with which I was not familiar before I joined the army, but I overlooked that also.

“You think it is impossible, but you are wrong,” I told him.  “This scheme is bound to succeed.  All you have to do is to haunt the house.  You do not eject the tenant yourself.  You conjure up a ghost to do it for you.”

“The devil!”

“No—­not necessarily.  An ordinary ghost will do.”

“But, my dear good fool, how in Hades or out of it can I produce a ghost?”

“Easily.  By suggestion.  That is the secret.  This is an age of suggestion.  Doctors are curing patients by suggestion.  Politicians hypnotise the public by suggestion.  And you can frighten the present occupants out of your chosen home by suggestion.  No real ghost is required.  Having selected the house you pay a call and lay ground-bait, so to speak.  You tell the tenant you are interested in the place because you happen to know that at one time it was haunted.  You relate a gruesome tale of some mysterious tragedy that you say has occurred there, and generally make your victim’s flesh creep.

“He or she, a woman for choice, will probably laugh at first.  Never mind.  Allow a few days for the idea to sink in, and then call again.  It is a hundred to one that you will hear that strange manifestations have been observed.  After that it will be plain sailing.  You will continue to call, always supplying fresh suggestion, until at last, thoroughly unnerved, the tenant will bolt, probably taking refuge in a hotel.  That will be your chance.  Snatch the place up at once, and there you are.”

For the first time since he was demobilised, Higgins smiled.

“By Heavens!” he said, “I’ll try it.  There’s a little place at Croydon which would be a perfect billet.  I will pay my first visit at once.”

He sauntered away, proclaiming in song the satisfactory condition of rose-culture in Picardy.

Yesterday he came back.

His face was grim.  There was a light in his eye which I did not like.  He made no mention of roses blooming in Picardy or anywhere else.

“How is the scheme working?” I asked.  “Have you called on the Croydon gentleman?”

“I have,” he answered; “and when I had laid the blessed ground-bait, as you call it, he told me he always did think there was a ghost about the place, and he was delighted to have his theory confirmed.  He wants more details now.  He invites me to furnish evidence.  What for, you ask?  Well, you see, he happens to be an active member of the Society for Psychical Research.”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Polite Stranger (during the busy hour on the Underground).  “WON’T YOU SHARE MY HANDLE, MADAM?”]

* * * * *

SILLY SEASONING.

The strange case of the halibut and the cormorant, recently reported in the daily Press, has brought us a budget of interesting letters, from which we select the following as agreeable evidence of the return of normal conditions in the fish-story-telling industry:—­