"Yes, sir. I'm very sorry." "Never mind. In that case it's probably just as well that things are as they are. It'll be a great relief to be rid of you." "Rid of me?" George said fearfully. "You aren't going to...?" "Unfortunately, no," the Supreme Head sighed. "What I mean is that your mortal part, Marc Pillsworth, has got himself shot." George looked up sharply. His whole aspect changed; his eye brightened; his entire being grew more alert. "I'm to be sent to Earth as a permanent haunt? Oh, sir...!" "Hold it!" the Supreme Head snapped. "Don't go into a spring dance. There's a hitch." "Oh," George said, but his eagerness was not noticeably dampened. To George, the merest prospect of a visit to Earth was only to be regarded with rapturous anticipation. To him that distant world of mortals was a place of boundless and exquisite attraction. It was made up in equal parts of liquor, women and larceny and anything else that existed there was merely the result of these things brought together in odd combination. For George, Earth was absolutely the last gasp. Of course George had never achieved the ultimate accomplishment of establishing permanent residence on Earth, for on all of his previous visits he had arrived only to find that Marc was still alive and that he could not legitimately remain. If on these occasions, George had done his level best to rectify this error with whatever murderous means at hand, it did not imply that the ghost held any personal animosity for Marc. It was simply that George's was the sort of temperament which boggled at almost nothing to achieve its end. "What's the catch?" he asked. "Don't be flip," the Supreme Head admonished. "And stop syncopating." "Syncopating?" George asked innocently. "I'm standing perfectly still." "It's your mind," the Supreme Head said. "It's jogging about like a cat on hot bricks. It shows all over you. This is an occasion of enormous seriousness." * * * * * George did his best to assume an expression of profound sobriety. "Yes, sir," he murmured. "First of all," the Supreme Head continued, "as usual there is some question as to Pillsworth's actual status. He has been shot, it's true, and his vibrations are definitely broken. However, experience has taught us to be wary in the case of Pillsworth. Often we have acted on false alarms in the past and have been sorry." The Head paused and beetled his brow. "Of course we need not have regretted those errors had you behaved yourself at all in the manner of a decent, self-respecting shade. Nevertheless, we don't dare take a chance despite our reluctance in the matter. Pillsworth's wound falls into the mortality class, so we have no alternative but to issue you your travel orders and the usual allotment of ectoplasm." He fixed George with an unhappy stare. "And get that look of evil delight off your face." "Sorry, sir," George said.