Arthur strapped it on. The transformation was instant. He didn't just look older; he looked like a man who had survived a shipwreck and then wrestled the shark that caused it.

"It’s $400," she whispered. "And remember: the spirit is in the adhesive."

Desperate, Arthur bypassed the local costume shops. He didn't want a "Party City" polyester chin-wig; he needed something that could withstand a gale-force wind and the scrutiny of a mountain ghost. He found himself in the back alley of London’s theater district, entering a shop called The Follicle Forge .

Arthur was twenty-eight and genetically incapable of growing more than a patchy, sad goatee that looked like a dying shrub.