"Perhaps the name may come to me now," continued the professor. "But your superior personality overwhelmed me at first; you are so self-willed, so dominant, so ruthless. The name, the name!" He cried the last words commandingly and snapped his fingers at the delinquent control. "There! I seem to hear--" "Never mind that name," broke in Bean hastily. "Let it go! I--I don't want to know it. Go on back farther!" Again the professor's look became trancelike. "Ah! What a relief to be free from that blood-lust!" He breathed deeply and his eyes rolled far up under their lids. "What is this? A statesman, still crafty, still the lines of cunning cruelty about the mouth. The city is Venice in the fourteenth century. He is dressed in a richly bejewelled robe and toys with an inlaid dagger. He is plotting the assassination of a Doge--" "Please get still farther back, can't you?" pleaded Bean. The seer struggled once more with his control. "I next see you at the head of a Roman legion, going forth to battle. You are a tyrant, ruling by fear alone, and with your own sword I see you cut off the heads of--" "Farther back," beseeched the sitter. "I--I've had enough of all that battle and killing. I--I don't _like_ it. Go on back to the very first." Patiently the adept redirected his forces. "I see a poet. He sings his deathless lay by a roadside in ancient Greece. He is an old man, feeble, blind--" "Something else," broke in the persistent sitter, resolving not to pay twenty dollars for having been a blind poet. The professor glanced sharply at him. Perhaps his control did not relish these interruptions. He seemed to suppress words of impatience and began anew. "Ah! Now I see your very first appearance on this planet. You were born from another as yet unknown to our astronomers. You are now"--he lowered his eyes to the sitter's face--"an Egyptian king." Detecting no sign of displeasure at this, he continued with refreshed enthusiasm. "It is thousands of years ago. You are the last king of the pre-dynastic era--" "What kind of a king--one of those fighters?" "You are a wise and good king. I see a peaceful realm peopled by contented subjects." "_That's_ what I want to know. Go on; tell me more. Married?" "Your wife is a princess of rare beauty from--from Mesopotamia. You have three lovely children, two boys and a girl, and your palace on the banks of the Nile is one of the most beautiful and grand palaces ever erected by the hand of man. You are ministered to by slaves, and your councillors of state come to you with their reports. You are tall, handsome and of a most kingly presence. Your personal bravery is unquestioned, you are an adept in all manly sports, but you will not go to war as you very properly detest all violence. For this reason there is little to relate of your reign. It was uneventful and distinguished only by your wise and humane statesmanship--" "What name?" asked Bean, in low, reverent tones.