Things went on in such a way for years. The several doctors established in the district starved and Stephan Ivanoff became rich. From Vasilenko's restaurant spread tales of marvellous recoveries from all kinds of diseases which the healer discovered as soon as he felt the man's pulse. It was as if the holy man from Omsk had himself sent Stephan Ivanoff to New York to save all the poisoned men. And when a man was very severely ill Stephan spoke mysteriously of occult communications with the man "out there" and gave a brew of special herbs grown on the tombs of holy men and ordered Chinese leeches and dry-cupped in a special way until the man was saved. Stephen Ivanoff furnished his apartment with all the Russian things he could get in order to impress the increasing number of his visitors. The priest came to see him one day to admonish him about a little scandal with Vasilenko's wife. Stephan Ivanoff kissed the hand of the old man and as he held it between the pointer and the thumb he exclaimed "Father, don't move!" Silently, attentive, with the hand of the priest limply between his fingers he said: "Father Anton Fevdoroff, you are a sick man." "My son, I have come to speak to you about other things." The priest, essaying his unctuous voice, tried to set things right. Vasilenko had gone to Russia to visit his parents, and his wife, the rumor spread, fell to the healer's spell. Stephan Ivanoff, the healer, listened to the priest's admonition to the end and as he did so his face radiated happiness; as though some wonderfully clear visions were descending from the heavens upon him. "What have you to say, son?" "That God's wisdom is seen in the ways of life; that he taketh care of man and worm, and that no action and no thought can come but that He had willed it," answered Stephan Ivanoff, in religious transport. "But why does my son speak now about godliness, when I come to censure him about his immorality?" "In Omsk, father, I met a holy man who taught me many things before I came here. In five years I have not met you once. And because you are also a holy man God willed that Vasilenko go to Russia and I be exposed to false accusations so that you should come to me. You are a sick man, Anton Fevdoroff--your pulse tells me you are a very sick man, that you have been poisoned." Father Anton Fevdoroff maintained that he was not a sick man but the thumb and the forefinger of Stephan Ivanoff on the pulse of the man knew better. A few days later the priest sent word to the healer that he should come to see him. Father Fevdoroff was ill. The doctor had prescribed something which did not seem to help and the priest's wife was despairing. Brought up in a little village in Russia her confidence in leeches and cupping was much stronger than in the official medicine. Stephan's methods suited her and as the priest's health improved under his treatment, Mother Fevdoroff went into ecstasies over the holy man from Omsk: