And there’s my ticket for the séance; I must have that:
I may use it after all.”

He tweaked it out of the fingers of the man who had picked it up, and
laughed to see the expression of amazement on his face as the card
suddenly vanished. That gave him something fresh to think about, and
he pondered for a moment over some touch of association set up by it. “I have it,” he thought. “It is clear that the moment I came into
connection with that card, it became invisible. I’m invisible myself
(of course to the grosser sense), and everything I hold becomes
invisible. Most interesting! That accounts for the sudden appearances
of small objects at a séance. The spirit has been holding them, and as
long as he holds them they are invisible. Then he lets go, and there’s
the flower or the spirit-photograph on the table. It accounts, too, for
the sudden disappearances of such objects. The spirit has taken them,
though the scoffers say that the medium has secreted them about his
person. It is true that when searched he sometimes appears to have done
so; but, after all, that may be a joke on the part of the spirit. Now,
what am I to do with myself.... Let me see, there’s the clock. It’s
just half-past ten. All this has happened in a few minutes, for it was
a quarter past when I left my house. Half-past ten now: what does that
mean exactly? I used to know what it meant, but now it seems nonsense. Ten what? Hours, is it? What’s an hour?”

This was very puzzling. He felt that he used to know what an hour and a
minute meant, but the perception of that, naturally enough, had ceased
with his emergence from time and space into eternity. The conception
of time was like some memory which, refusing to record itself on the
consciousness, lies perdu in some dark corner of the brain, laughing at
the efforts of the owner to ferret it out. While he still interrogated
his mind over this lapsed perception, he found that space as well as
time, had similarly grown obsolete for him, for he caught sight of his
friend Miss Ida Soulsby, whom he knew was to be present at the séance
for which he was bound, hurrying with bird-like steps down the pavement
opposite. Forgetting for the moment that he was a disembodied spirit,
he made the effort of will which in his past human existence would have
set his legs in pursuit of her, and found that the effort of will alone
was enough to place him at her side. “My dear Miss Soulsby,” he said, “I was on my way to Mrs. Cumberbatch’s
house when I was knocked down and killed. It was far from unpleasant, a
moment’s headache----”

So far his natural volubility had carried him before he recollected
that he was invisible and inaudible to those still closed in by the
muddy vesture of decay, and stopped short. But though it was clear
that what he said was inaudible to Miss Soulsby’s rather large
intelligent-looking ears, it seemed that some consciousness of his
presence was conveyed to her finer sense, for she looked suddenly
startled, a flush rose to her face, and he heard her murmur, “Very odd. I wonder why I received so vivid an impression of dear Teddy.”

That gave Mr. Tilly a pleasant shock. He had long admired the lady,
and here she was alluding to him in her supposed privacy as “dear
Teddy.” That was followed by a momentary regret that he had been
killed: he would have liked to have been possessed of this information
before, and have pursued the primrose path of dalliance down which it
seemed to lead. (His intentions, of course, would, as always, have
been strictly honourable: the path of dalliance would have conducted
them both, if she consented, to the altar, where the primroses would
have been exchanged for orange blossom.) But his regret was quite
short-lived; though the altar seemed inaccessible, the primrose path
might still be open, for many of the spiritualistic circle in which he
lived were on most affectionate terms with their spiritual guides and
friends who, like himself, had passed over. From a human point of view
these innocent and even elevating flirtations had always seemed to him
rather bloodless; but now, looking on them from the far side, he saw
how charming they were, for they gave him the sense of still having
a place and an identity in the world he had just quitted. He pressed
Miss Ida’s hand (or rather put himself into the spiritual condition of
so doing), and could vaguely feel that it had some hint of warmth and
solidity about it. This was gratifying, for it showed that though he
had passed out of the material plane, he could still be in touch with
it. Still more gratifying was it to observe that a pleased and secret
smile overspread Miss Ida’s fine features as he gave this token of his
presence: perhaps she only smiled at her own thoughts, but in any case
it was he who had inspired them. Encouraged by this, he indulged in
a slightly more intimate token of affection, and permitted himself a
respectful salute, and saw that he had gone too far, for she said to
herself, “Hush, hush!” and quickened her pace, as if to leave these
amorous thoughts behind. He felt that he was beginning to adjust himself to the new conditions
in which he would now live, or, at any rate, was getting some sort
of inkling as to what they were. Time existed no more for him, nor
yet did space, since the wish to be at Miss Ida’s side had instantly
transported him there, and with a view to testing this further he
wished himself back in his flat. As swiftly as the change of scene in
a cinematograph show he found himself there, and perceived that the
news of his death must have reached his servants, for his cook and
parlour-maid with excited faces, were talking over the event. “Poor little gentleman,” said his cook. “It seems a shame it does. He
never hurt a fly, and to think of one of those great engines laying him
out flat. I hope they’ll take him to the cemetery from the hospital: I
never could bear a corpse in the house.”

The great strapping parlour-maid tossed her head. “Well, I’m not sure that it doesn’t serve him right,” she observed. “Always messing about with spirits he was, and the knockings and
concertinas was awful sometimes when I’ve been laying out supper in
the dining-room. Now perhaps he’ll come himself and visit the rest of
the loonies. But I’m sorry all the same. A less troublesome little
gentleman never stepped. Always pleasant, too, and wages paid to the
day.”

These regretful comments and encomiums were something of a shock to Mr.
Tilly. He had imagined that his excellent servants regarded him with a
respectful affection, as befitted some sort of demigod, and the rôle of
the poor little gentleman was not at all to his mind. This revelation
of their true estimate of him, although what they thought of him could
no longer have the smallest significance, irritated him profoundly. “I never heard such impertinence,” he said (so he thought) quite out
loud, and still intensely earth-bound, was astonished to see that
they had no perception whatever of his presence.