"Oh, I used to be clairaudient myself when I begun," said Madam Spoll a little sadly. "I could catch a name right out of the air, half the time. I’ve gave some wonderful tests in my day, but you can’t never depend upon it, and when you work all the week, sick or well, drunk or sober, you have to put water in the milk and then it’s bound to go from you. You have to string ’em sooner or later. This girl’s a dandy at it, though, but that’ll all wait. There’s enough to do before we get to that part of the game. I expect I had better go out and see Sadie Crum myself. I don’t trust her telephone. She’s got a ten-party line, what do you think of that?" "A ten-party line don’t do for business," said Vixley, "but it’s pretty good for rubberin’. I’ve got some pretty good dope off my sister’s wire. She spends pretty near all her time on it and it does come in handy." "Oh, pshaw!" Madam Spoll looked disgusted. "I ain’t got time to spend that way. What’s the use anyway? They ain’t but one rule necessary to know in this business, and that is: All men is conceited, and all women is vain." "That’s right!" Vixley assented. "Only I got another that works just as good; all women want to think they are misunderstood, and all men want to think they understand. Ain’t that right, Doc?" Masterson grinned. "I guess likely you ought to know, if anybody does. But I got a little one of my own framed up, too. How’s this? All men want to be heroes and all women want to be martyrs." The three laughed cynically together. They had learned their practical psychology in a thorough school. Madam Spoll chuckled for some time pleasantly. "You’re the one had ought to write a book, Masterson. I’ll bet it would beat out Payson’s!" "Lord!" said Vixley. "If I was to write down the things that have happened to me, just as they occurred—" "It wouldn’t be fit to print," Madam Spoll added. Vixley looked flattered. "How about that pickle-girl?" he asked next. "What’s that?" said Doctor Masterson. "Oh, a new graft of Gertie’s. Did she come, Gert?" "I should say she did," Madam Spoll replied. "And I got her on the string staking out dopes, too. Why, she’s mixed up with a fellow at the Risdon Iron Works, and she don’t dare to say her soul’s her own since she told me." "Nothin’ like a good scandal to hold on to people by," Masterson remarked. "Where’d you get her?" "Oh, she floated in. I give her a reading and found out she worked in a pickle factory down on Sixth Street where there are fifty or more girls. Soon as I found out the handle to work her by, I made her a proposition to tip off what’s doing in her shop. She makes her little report, steers the girls up here, and then she comes round and tells me who they are and all about ’em." "That’s what I call a good wholesale business," said Vixley enviously. "I wish I could work it as slick as that. She uses the peek-hole in the screen, I suppose?"