him the amount of sympathy I was doing now. I could see what he wanted
straight away, and I determined to head him off at once. I may be a
brute, you know, but being the Only Real Friend, the recipient of the
confidences of one of these egotistical weaklings, ghost or body, is
beyond my physical endurance. I got up briskly. 'Don't you brood on
these things too much,' I said. 'The thing you've got to do is to get
out of this get out of this--sharp. You pull yourself together and
TRY.' 'I can't,' he said. 'You try,' I said, and try he did."

"Try!" said Sanderson. "HOW?"

"Passes," said Clayton.

"Passes?"

"Complicated series of gestures and passes with the hands. That's
how he had come in and that's how he had to get out again. Lord!
what a business I had!"

"But how could ANY series of passes--?" I began.

"My dear man," said Clayton, turning on me and putting a great
emphasis on certain words, "you want EVERYTHING clear. _I_ don't
know HOW. All I know is that you DO--that HE did, anyhow, at least.
After a fearful time, you know, he got his passes right and suddenly
disappeared."

"Did you," said Sanderson, slowly, "observe the passes?"

"Yes," said Clayton, and seemed to think. "It was tremendously queer,"