ance occurs, please notify me at once. Otherwise, I'll
send you word when I have made progress."

Having dismissed the anxious pundit, Average Jones, so immersed in
thought as to be oblivious to outer things, made his way to the Cosmic
Club in a series of caroms from indignant pedestrian to indignant
pedestrian. There, as he had foreseen, he found Robert Bertram.

"Can I detach you from your usual bridge game this evening?" he demanded
of that languid gentleman.

"Very possibly. What's the inducement?"

"Chapter Second of the Bellair Street advertisement. I've told you the
first chapter. You've been the god-outside-the-machine so far. Now, come
on in."

Together they went to the Greenwich Village house. The name "Smith" had
disappeared from the vestibule.

"As I expected," said Jones. "Our hope be in the landlord!"

The landlord turned out to be a German landlady, who knew little
concerning her late ground-floor tenant and evinced no interest in the
subject. The "perfessor," as she termed "Smith," had taken the flat
by the month, was prompt in payment, quiet in habit, given to long and
frequent absences; had been there hardly at all in the last few weeks.
Where had he moved to? Hummel only knew! He had left no address. Where
did his furniture go? Nowhere; he'd left it behind. Was any one in the
house acquainted with him? Mrs. Marron in the other ground-floor flat
had tried to be. Not much luck, she thought.

Mrs. Marron was voluble, ignorant, and a willing source of information.

"The perfessor? Sure! I knew'm. 'Twas me give'm the name. He was a
Mejum. Naw! Not for money. Too swell for that. But a real-thing Mejum.
A big one; one of the kind it comes to, nacheral. Spirit-rappin's!
Somethin' fierce! My kitchen window is on the air-shaft. So's his.
Many's the time in the still evenin's I've heard the rap-rap-rappin' on
his window an' on the wall, but mostly on the window. Blip! out of the
dark. It'd make you just hop! And him sittin' quiet and peaceful in the
front room all the time. Yep; my little girl seen him there while I was
hearin' the raps."

"Did you ask him about them?" inquired Jones.

"Sure! He wouldn't have it at first. Then he kinder smiled and half
owned up. And once I seen him with his materializin' wand, sittin' in
the room almost dark."

"His what?"

"Materializin' wand. Spirit-rod, you know. As tall as himself and all
shiny and slick. It was slim and sort o' knobby like this wood--what's