th the mate about."

Then Johns, after calming down a bit, would begin again.

"The sensitised plate can't lie. No, sir."

Nothing could be more funny than this ridiculous little man's
conviction--his dogmatic tone. Bunter would go on swinging up and down
the poop like a deliberate, dignified pendulum. He said not a word. But
the poor fellow had not a trifle on his conscience, as you know; and to
have imbecile ghosts rammed down his throat like this on top of his own
worry nearly drove him crazy. He knew that on many occasions he was
on the verge of lunacy, because he could not help indulging in
half-delirious visions of Captain Johns being picked up by the scruff of
the neck and dropped over the taffrail into the ship's wake--the sort
of thing no sane sailorman would think of doing to a cat or any other
animal, anyhow. He imagined him bobbing up--a tiny black speck left far
astern on the moonlit ocean.

I don't think that even at the worst moments Bunter really desired to
drown Captain Johns. I fancy that all his disordered imagination longed
for was merely to stop the ghostly inanity of the skipper's talk.

But, all the same, it was a dangerous form of self-indulgence. Just
picture to yourself that ship in the Indian Ocean, on a clear, tropical
night, with her sails full and still, the watch on deck stowed away out
of sight; and on her poop, flooded with moonlight, the stately black
mate walking up and down with measured, dignified steps, preserving
an awful silence, and that grotesquely mean little figure in striped
flannelette alternately creaking and droning of "personal intercourse
beyond the grave."

It makes me creepy all over to think of. And sometimes the folly of
Captain Johns would appear clothed in a sort of weird utilitarianism.
How useful it would be if the spirits of the departed could be induced
to take a practical interest in the affairs of the living! What a help,
say, to the police, for instance, in the detection of crime! The number
of murders, at any rate, would be considerably reduced, he guessed
with an air of great sagacity. Then he would give way to grotesque
discouragement.

Where was the use of trying to communicate with people that had no
faith, and more likely than not would scorn the offered information?
Spirits had their feelings. They were _all_ feelings in a way. But
he was surprised at the forbearance shown towards murderers by their
victims. That was the sort of apparition tha