of mystery
or clairvoyant power, and Zizi was bewildered.

"I am indeed glad to know you!" she exclaimed, "will you impart this
knowledge to me, or is it a secret?"

"It's not a secret, perhaps it isn't knowledge, it's, after all, only my
own theory, or rather, discovery, based on long and wide experience."

Zizi was enchanted.

"Oh, goody!" she cried, her black eyes dancing. "I'm crazy to know just
what you mean! Will you give me a session with the board?"

"Will you promise not to push?"

"Of course, and, anyway, you'd know it if I did."

So Carly got the board, and the two sat at it, while Julie looked on.

The usual routine followed, and at last the professed spirit of Peter
Crane was "present."

On being asked if Thorpe killed Gilbert Blair, the Ouija Board promptly
replied "No."

"Oh, Peter, the other day you said he did!" Carlotta exclaimed, but
again the Board flew to the corner where "No" was printed.

Julie, watching closely, was sure neither of the girls in any way
cheated or helped things along. She was an acute observer, and she was
certain both the manipulators were strictly sincere.

"Well, then," Zizi said, her thin, dark fingers merely touching the
little wooden heart, "who did?"

There was no reply. Motionless the board remained, and no persuasion
would induce it to move.

Other subjects were brought up, questions were asked to which only
Carlotta knew the answer, or to which only Zizi did, and they were
answered, if not always definitely, at least in a general way. But when
they returned to the question about Blair there was no response.

"Don't you know?" Carlotta demanded of Peter's "spirit," which
obligingly announced its presence when requested.

But the board remained stationary, and they finally gave it up.

"All of which goes to prove my theory the true one," Carlotta declared,
and then Zizi begged her to disclose her discoveries.

"Why, you see, it's this way," Carlotta began, "you get out of the
Ouija Board exactly what you bring to it, no more, no less."

"Just what do you mean by that?"

"That nobody gets any information from the board unless it is already in
his mind. When we ask questions, to which one of us knows the answer,
that answer comes. Mind you, I don't mean that one of us pushes the
board in the right direction, at least not consciously, but it is
inevitable that the mind leaps ahead, and when a word is started we
know, usually, what letter is coming ne