"I did though," the pale youth protested. "I conned him for near an hour." "You’re sure he didn’t get on to you?" Madam Spoll asked, regarding her head sidewise in the glass and patting the blue bow on her throat. "Sure! I was a dead ringer for the real-thing agent, and I had the books to show for it. I worked him for an insurance policy." "Well? What did he say?" Madam Spoll turned on him like a mighty gun. "He was caught between two trains once on the Oakland Mole, and I guess he was squeezed pretty bad. He said it was a close call." "That’s all right," said Vixley; "we can trim that up in good shape, can’t we, Gert?" "It’ll do for a starter. Give him a dollar." "Anything more to-day?" Ringa asked, rising slowly. "No; I’ll let you know if I want you," said the Madam. Ringa slouched out. "I’d let that cool off a while till he’s forgotten it," Vixley suggested. "I’ll make him forget it, all right," Madam Spoll returned. "That’s my business. You do your part as well as I do mine and you’ll be all right." "It’s only this first part that makes me nervous." "Oh, he ain’t going to catch _me_ in a trap. I got sense enough to put a mouse in first to try it." She stood in front of the mirror in the folding-bed, arranging her hair, which had been wet and still glistened with moisture, holding her comb, meanwhile, in her mouth. Professor Vixley tilted back in his plush chair, his head resting against the grease-spot on the wall-paper which indicated his habitual pose. "Now don’t you go too fast," he said, pulling out a square of chewing-tobacco and biting off a corner. "This here is a-goin’ to be a delicate operation. Payson ain’t so easy as Bennett was. Bennett would believe that cows was cucumbers, if we told him so, but this chap is too much on the skeptic. We got to go slow." "You leave me alone for _that_," Madam Spoll replied easily. "I guess I know how to jolly a good thing along. Has he got the money? That’s all I want to know about him." "He’s got money all right. That’s a cinch. I’m not in this thing for my health. What’s more, he’s got the writin’ bug, and I can see a good graft in that." "Well, I’ll give it a try." "No, you better keep your hands off that subject, Gertie. I can work that game better’n you. I got it all framed up how I can string him good. I’m goin’ to make that a truly elegant work of art. All you got to do is to get him goin’, and then steer him up against me." The door-bell rang noisily up-stairs and Mr. Spoll’s footsteps were heard going to answer the summons. "I guess that’s my cue," said Madam Spoll, smiling affably. "I wish I had more magnetism to-day." She shook her hands and snapped her fingers. "I can’t stand so much of this as I used to. I can remember when I could get a name every time without fishing for it. But what I’ve lost in one way I have learned in another. I’m going to give him a run for his money, and don’t you forget it."