“Is—is that where they've been coming from?”
“Of course. Where else?”
“But my ghosts aren't a bit like you——”
“If they were people wouldn't believe in them.” She draped herself on the top of my desk among the pens and ink bottles and leaned towards me. “In the other life I used to write.”
She nodded.
“But that has nothing to do with my present form. It might have, but I gave it up at last for that very reason, and went to work as a reader on a magazine.” She sighed, and rubbed the end of her long eagle nose with a reminiscent finger. “Those were terrible days; the memory of them made me mistake purgatory for paradise, and at last when I attained my present state of being, I made up my mind that something should be done. I found others who had suffered similarly, and between us we organized 'The Writer's Inspiration Bureau.' We scout around until we find a writer without ideas and with a mind soft enough to accept impression. The case is brought to the attention of the main office, and one of us assigned to it. When that case is finished we bring in a report.”
“But I never saw you before——”
“And you wouldn't have this time if I hadn't come to announce the strike. Many a time I've leaned on your shoulder when you've thought you were thinking hard—” I groaned, and clutched my hair. The very idea of that horrible scarecrow so much as touching me! and wouldn't my wife be shocked! I shivered. “But,” she continued, “that's at an end. We've been called out of our beds a little too often in recent years, and now we're through.”
“But my dear madam, I assure you I have had nothing to do with that. I hope I'm properly grateful and all that, you see.”