"Sometimes, and sometimes she sits behind the window curtain up-stairs." "You have to give yourself away, that’s the only trouble," said Doctor Masterson. "Oh, no," Madam Spoll remarked easily, "I just tell her that I can’t always get everybody’s magnetism, though of course I can always get hers. That gives her an idea she’s important, don’t you see? Then I can always lay anything suspicious to the Diakkas. Evil spirits are a great comfort." "And anyways, if she should want to tell anything," Vixley suggested, "you can everlastingly blacklist her at the factory with what you know." "Yes," Madam Spoll assented; "she’s got a record herself, only she hasn’t got sense enough to realize on it the way I do on mine. Is they any bigger fool than a girl that’s in love?" "Only a man that is," Vixley offered sagely. "Oh, _men_!" she exclaimed contemptuously. "I believe they ain’t more’n but three real ones alive to-day!" The Professor’s eyes snapped. "Well, they’s women enough, thank the Lord!" "Well," said Doctor Masterson, "I got to go to work; I’m keeping office hours in the evening now and I have to hump. So long, Gertie, I’ll be all ready for Payson, but you and Vixley have got to keep jollying him along. You want me to hold him about a month? I’ll see what I can do, and if I get a lead, I’ll let you know." He shook hands and left them. "I ain’t so sure of the Doc as I’d like to be," said Madam Spoll after he had gone. "Nor me neither," Vixley replied. "We’ve got to watch him, I expect, but he’ll do for a starter and we can fix him if he gets funny. There ain’t nothin’ like coöperation, Gertie." As Madam Spoll sat down again to open a bottle of beer she had taken from beneath the wash-stand, Professor Vixley began to twirl his fingers in his lap and snicker to himself. "What are you laughing at, Vixley?" she asked, pouring out two frothing glasses. "I was just a-thinkin’ about Pierpont Thayer. Don’t you remember that dope who went nuts on spiritualism and committed suicide?" "No, I don’t just recall it; what about it?" "Why, he got all wound up in the circles here—Sadie Crum, she had him on the string for a year, till he didn’t know where he was at. He took it so hard that one day he up and shot hisself and left a note pinned on to his bed that said: ’I go to test the problem.’ Lord! I’d ’a’ sold every one of my tricks and all hers to him for a five-dollar bill! Why didn’t he come to _me_ to test his problem? He’d ’a’ found out quick enough." "Yes, and after you’d told him all about how it was done, I’ll guarantee that I could have converted him again in twenty minutes." "I guess that’s right," said Vixley. "Them that want to believe are goin’ to, and you can’t prevent ’em, no matter what you do. They’re like hop fiends—they’ve got to have their dope whether or no, and just so long as they can dream it out they’re happy." *CHAPTER VIII* *ILLUMINATION*