"That’s what," said Vixley. "I’ve got a good graft doped out, and it’s liable to be a big thing. First time to-day. One of Gertie Spoll’s strikes, and we’re working him together. Old man Payson it is." "Oh, that’s the one Doc Masterson expected me to help him with, isn’t it?" Flora asked. "I wish you’d let me in on that." "He ain’t in your line, Flo, I expect. Ain’t you doin’ anything now?" "Only the regular set, the same old stand-bys, and there’s nothing in it at four bits apiece. I’ve got so many people to pay that even if I get forty or fifty in a circle my expenses eat it all up. Then I have to keep thinking up new stunts and buy props." "You don’t have to spend much on gas," Vixley laughed, as he began washing off his slates. Flora smiled. "No, but it comes to about the same thing in luminous paint." "Why don’t you make it yourself? It ain’t nothin’ but ground oyster-shells and sulphur." "Oh, it ain’t only that. I only use the best silk gauze that’ll fold up small—that’s expensive; then there’s a lot of work on the forms." "Don’t you get your forms from Chicago now?" Vixley asked. "No, they’re no good. I can make better ones myself. Oh, occasionally I send for a rubber face or two or some cabinet attachments and extensions. I wish I was clever enough to do the slates." She watched the Professor sharply. "Oh, they ain’t nothin’ in slates nowadays—it don’t seem to take, somehow. They mostly prefer the psychics. I s’pose slate-writin’ has been wrote up too much—I know a dozen books describin’ the tricks, and here’s this Drexel chap teachin’ ’em at a dollar apiece, even. He’s a queer guy. When he can get a bookin’ he travels as a magician; durin’ his off-times he sells his tricks to amachures, and then when he’s down on his uppers he does the medium. I’m sorry I went into physical mediumship; the graft’s about played out—people is gettin’ too intelligent. I’ve a good mind to try the developin’ stunt again." "Say, do you think Madam Spoll has any real power?" Flora asked. Vixley stopped in his work to become epigrammatic. "Some mediums are ’on’ and some are honest—them that’s honest are fools and them that’s ’on’ are foolin’. Gertie’s ’on’ all right, and she does considerable fishin’. I don’t say that when she started she didn’t have some faculty—she used to scare me good, sometimes, and she could catch a name occasional. But Lord, it’s so much easier to fake it; you can generally depend on human nature, and you can’t on psychometry." "I can tell things sometimes," Flora ventured. "Can you?" said Vixley. "Say, I wish you’d give me a readin’; they’s somethin’ I want to know about pretty bad; p’raps you could get it for me." "Oh, I know you too well. I can’t do it much, except the first time I see a party; but sometimes, when I’m materializing, I can go right down and say ’I’m Henry,’ or whatever the name is."