t, I found myself
compelled for one-half of the day to consider an insistent demand as
to the ultimate destination of flies in the winter-time. The rest of
the day the gramophone gave us _K-K-K-Katie_. (Elizabeth had only two
records to begin with.)

I became unnerved. My work suffered. It began to trickle back to me
accompanied by the regrets of editors; and to writers the regrets of
editors are the most poignant in the world.

The situation was saved by the most up-to-date tout of the whole
back-door tribe. He persuaded Elizabeth to go in for Spiritualism.
Do not misunderstand me. You can be a Spiritualist and also keep a
gramophone, but, if you are Elizabeth, you cannot keep the two running
at the same time if you must pay a shilling per week for each. When
she sought my opinion I strongly advised the seances, which I
said were cheap at the price; indeed I thought they were when the
gramophone departed.

It was now Elizabeth's turn to become unnerved. She has a mind that
is peculiarly open to impressions, and communion with the spirits
unbalanced her. She justified her expenditure of a shilling weekly by
placing the utmost faith in them.

"I 'ad a message from them there spirits larst night," she informed me
one day, "an' they tell me I must change my 'abitation."

"What do you mean?" I asked, startled.

"I put a message through, arskin' them when I should get a settled
young man, an' they told me that the fates are agen me in my present
dwellin', so if you'll please take my notice from--"

I will not go through the sickening formula. Every housewife must have
heard it several times at least in the past year or so. I accepted
Elizabeth's resignation and began to concentrate on newspaper
announcements. But I took an utter dislike to the spirits and listened
with cold aloofness when Elizabeth began, "I was talkin' to the spirit
of my young man larst night--"

"I didn't know you had the spirit of any young man," I interrupted.

"Yes, I 'ave. I mean Ned Akroyd, 'oo was drownded."

Now I have never believed in the alleged drowning of the said Ned.
The news--conveyed to Elizabeth by his mate--that he had fallen from
a ferry-boat near Eel Pie Island seemed unconvincing, especially as it
happened shortly after Elizabeth had lent him fifteen-and-six.

"I 'ad quite a long talk with 'im," she went on. "Next time I'm goin'
to arst 'im about the fifteen-and-six 'e borrowed, an' see if I can't
get it back some'ow."