ourse. Where else?"

"But my ghosts aren't a bit like you----"

"If they were people wouldn't believe in them." She draped herself on
the top of my desk among the pens and ink bottles and leaned towards me.
"In the other life _I_ used to write."

"You did!"

She nodded.

"But that has nothing to do with my present form. It might have, but I
gave it up at last for that very reason, and went to work as a reader on
a magazine." She sighed, and rubbed the end of her long eagle nose with
a reminiscent finger. "Those were terrible days; the memory of them made
me mistake purgatory for paradise, and at last when I attained my
present state of being, I made up my mind that something should be done.
I found others who had suffered similarly, and between us we organized
'The Writer's Inspiration Bureau.' We scout around until we find a
writer without ideas and with a mind soft enough to accept impression.
The case is brought to the attention of the main office, and one of us
assigned to it. When that case is finished we bring in a report."

"But I never saw you before----"

"And you wouldn't have this time if I hadn't come to announce the
strike. Many a time I've leaned on your shoulder when you've thought
_you_ were thinking hard--" I groaned, and clutched my hair. The very
idea of that horrible scarecrow so much as touching me! and wouldn't my
wife be shocked! I shivered. "But," she continued, "that's at an end.
We've been called out of our beds a little too often in recent years,
and now we're through."

"But my dear madam, I assure you I have had nothing to do with that. I
hope I'm properly grateful and all that, you see."

"Oh, it isn't you," she explained patronizingly. "It's those Ouija board
fanatics. There was a time when we had nothing much to occupy us and
used to haunt a little on the side, purely for amusement, but not any
more. We've had to give up haunting almost entirely. We sit at a desk
and answer questions now. And such questions!"

She shook her head hopelessly, and taking off her glasses wiped them,
and put them back on her nose again.

"But what have I got to do with this?"

She gave me a pitying look and rose.

"You're to exert your influence. Get all your friends and acquaintances
to stop using the Ouija board, and then we'll start helping you to
write."

"But----"

There was a footstep outside my door.

"John! Oh, John!" called the voice of my wife.

I waved my arms at the ghost wit