We began next night, a serious little group of experimenters from various corners of the earth. Each of us in his own little sphere had seen something of the wonders of the world and was keen to learn more. There was “Doc.” O’Farrell, the bacteriologist, who had fought sleeping-sickness in Central Africa. He argued that the fact that we could not see them was no proof that spooks did not exist, and told us of things revealed by the microscope, things that undoubtedly “are there,” with queer shapes and grisly names. (The pictures he drew of some of his pet “bugs” gave me a new idea for my next nightmare.) Then there was Little, the geologist from the Sudan, who knew all about the earth and the construction thereof, and had dug up the fossilized remains of weird and enormous animals. _His_ pets were as big as the Doc.’s were small. There was Price, the submarine man from under the sea, and Tudway (plain Navy) from on top of it. And there is a saying about those who go down to the sea in ships which was never truer than of these two men. There was Matthews, from India, sapper and scientist. He knew all about wireless telegraphy and ether and the various lengths of the various kinds of waves, and he did not see why “thought waves” should not exist in some of the gaps in the series which we thought to be empty. And there was the writer, who knew nothing of scientific value. He had studied psychology at College, and human nature amongst the jungle folk in Burma. Such was the group which first took up spooking. None of us knew anything about the subject, but my postcard gave clear instructions and we followed them. Matthews brought in the best table we possessed (a masterpiece made by Colbeck out of an old packing-case), and Doc. groomed the top of it with the corner of his embassy coat, so as to make it slippery enough for the Spook to slide about on with comfort. Tudway and Price cut out squares of paper, and Little wrote a letter of the alphabet on each and arranged them in a circle round the edge of the table. I polished the tumbler in which we hoped to capture the Spook, and placed it upside down in the centre of the circle. Everything was ready. We had constructed our first “_Ouija_.” “Now what do we do?” Doc. asked. “Two of us put a finger lightly on the glass, close our eyes and make our minds blank.” “Faith!” said the Doc., “we’d better get a couple of Red Tabs from the Majors’ House; this looks like a Staff job. An’ what next?” “Then the glass should begin to move about and touch the letters. Somebody must note down the ones touched.”