The situation was saved by the most up-to-date tout of the whole back-door tribe. He persuaded Elizabeth to go in for Spiritualism. Do not misunderstand me. You can be a Spiritualist and also keep a gramophone, but, if you are Elizabeth, you cannot keep the two running at the same time if you must pay a shilling per week for each. When she sought my opinion I strongly advised the seances, which I said were cheap at the price; indeed I thought they were when the gramophone departed. It was now Elizabeth's turn to become unnerved. She has a mind that is peculiarly open to impressions, and communion with the spirits unbalanced her. She justified her expenditure of a shilling weekly by placing the utmost faith in them. "I 'ad a message from them there spirits larst night," she informed me one day, "an' they tell me I must change my 'abitation." "What do you mean?" I asked, startled. "I put a message through, arskin' them when I should get a settled young man, an' they told me that the fates are agen me in my present dwellin', so if you'll please take my notice from--" I will not go through the sickening formula. Every housewife must have heard it several times at least in the past year or so. I accepted Elizabeth's resignation and began to concentrate on newspaper announcements. But I took an utter dislike to the spirits and listened with cold aloofness when Elizabeth began, "I was talkin' to the spirit of my young man larst night--" "I didn't know you had the spirit of any young man," I interrupted. "Yes, I 'ave. I mean Ned Akroyd, 'oo was drownded." Now I have never believed in the alleged drowning of the said Ned. The news--conveyed to Elizabeth by his mate--that he had fallen from a ferry-boat near Eel Pie Island seemed unconvincing, especially as it happened shortly after Elizabeth had lent him fifteen-and-six. "I 'ad quite a long talk with 'im," she went on. "Next time I'm goin' to arst 'im about the fifteen-and-six 'e borrowed, an' see if I can't get it back some'ow." How the spirit would have considered this proposition is still uncertain, for Elizabeth never returned to the seances. She came to me one day in a state of violent agitation. "I see Ned Akroyd when I was out larst night," she began, "an' would you believe it, 'e's no more dead than I am, the wretch!" "Well, aren't you glad?" I inquired. "Glad, an' 'im with another girl an' pretendin' all the time not to see me! Men are 'ounds, that's what they are. An' I'll go to no more seeonces. They're a swindle." "They were wrong about telling you to change your habitation too, weren't they?" I suggested insinuatingly. "Course they were." Suddenly her face brightened. "I'll be able to 'ave the grammerfone back now," she said. * * * * *