"Hearing of it wasn't difficult," she said, "because we'd known about it for years. The trouble was to get it." "It wasn't empty, then?" I replied. "No. There was a Mr. Broom here. We asked him if he wanted to go, and he said No. We made him an offer, and he refused. He was most unreasonable." (It was the same word that the unsettler had used.) I agreed: "Most." "So there was nothing for it but to will his departure." "Will?" "Yes. Concentrate our thoughts on his giving notice, and invite our friends to do the same. I wrote scores of letters all round, impressing this necessity, this absolute, sacred duty, on them. I asked them to make a special effort on the night of March 18th, at eleven o'clock, when we should all be free. It sounds rather dreadful, but I always hold that the people who want a house most are best fitted to have it. One can't be too nice in such matters." "Well?" I asked. "Well, you'll hardly believe it--and I shan't be a bit vexed if you don't--but on the morning of the 20th of March I had a letter from Mr. Broom saying that he had decided to leave, and we could have the first call on his house. It was too wonderful. I don't mind confessing that I felt a little ashamed. I felt it had been too easy." "It is certainly a dangerous power," I said. "Well," she continued, "I hurried round to see him before he could change his mind. 'Do you really want to leave?' I asked him. 'Yes,' he said. 'Why?' I asked. 'Well,' he said, 'I can't tell you why. I don't know. All I know is that all of a sudden I have got tired and feel vaguely that I want a change. I am quite sure I am making a mistake and I'll never find so good a place; but there it is: I'm going.' I assure you I felt for a moment inclined to back out altogether and advise him to stay on. I was even half disposed to tell him the truth; but I pulled myself together. And--well, here we are!" "It's amazing," I said. "You must either have very strong-minded friends, or the stars have played very oddly into your hands, or both." "Yes," she said; "but there's a little difficulty. One has to be so careful in this life." "One has," I fervently agreed. "But what is it?" "Some of my friends," she explained, "didn't quite play the game. Instead of willing, as I explicitly indicated, that our Mr. Broom should leave the Manor Farm, they willed merely that Mr. Broom should leave his house, and the result is that all kinds of Mr. Brooms all over the country have been giving notice. I heard of another only this morning. In fact, our Mr. Broom's brother was one of them. It's a very perilous as well as a useful gift, you see. But we've got the farm, and that's the main thing." She smiled the smile of a conqueror. "But," remarked another of the guests, who had told us that she was looking for a _pied-a-terre_, "there's a catch somewhere, isn't there? Don't you see any weak point?" Our hostess smiled less confidently. "How?" she asked uneasily.