"Good work!" said Madam Spoll. "I’ll give you a rake-off if I land her. I’ve got her ballot right here. I won’t need to open it." "Ain’t that job worth a dollar to you as it stands?" Ringa asked nervously. "I’ll call it square and take my chances on the percentage." "All right. It’s a good sporting chance! Only I wish it was a man. Women are too close." Madam Spoll opened her purse and paid him. As Ringa left, Vixley asked: "By the way, how about this fellow Payson? Do you think Lulu roped him?" "I guess so. Lulu’s done pretty well lately, and she’s brought me considerable business. She ought to be here by this time." "I should think she’d be able to handle him alone." "Don’t you go and tell her so! The thing for her to do is to get a manager, but I don’t intend to queer my own game." "What line is she workin’ now? She’s failed at about everything ever since she begun with cards." "Oh, she’s doing the ’Egyptian egg’ reading. Wouldn’t that freeze you? Lord, that was out of date twenty years go; but everything goes in San Francisco." "Say, ain’t this town the penultimate limit!" Vixley ejaculated, grinning. "Why, the dopes will stand in line all night for a chance to be trimmed, and send their money by express, prepaid, if you let ’em. Gert, sometimes I’m ashamed of myself for keepin’ ’em waitin’ so long! Talk about takin’ a gumdrop away from a sick baby; that’s hard labor to what we did for Bennett. What I want to know is, how do these damn fools ever get all the money we take away from ’em? It don’t look like they had sense enough to cash a check." "If I had one or two more decoys as good as Ringa and Lulu Ellis, I’d be fixed all right. I could stake out all the dopes in town. Say, Granthope could cut up a lot of easy cash if he’d agree to stand in. I tried to tap him about this here Payson, and he wouldn’t give me a tip." "Perhaps he didn’t know anything. You can’t loosen up when you’re wide open, can you?" "He generally knows all there is to know. The trouble is he’s getting too high-toned. Since he fitted up his new studio and butted into society you can’t get near him with nothing like a business proposition. I believe he thinks he’s too good for this place and will go East. He’s a nice boy, though. I ain’t got nothing against him, only I wish he’d help us out. Hello, here’s Lulu. Good evening, Lulu, how’s Egyptian eggs to-day?" Lulu Ellis was a dumpy, roly-poly, soft-eyed, soft-haired, pink-cheeked young woman, as innocent appearing a person as ever lived on her wits. Not that she had many of them, but a limited sagacity is enough to dupe victims as willing to be cajoled as those who appeal to the Egyptian egg for a sign of the future. Lulu’s large, brown eyes were enough to distract one’s attention from her rule-of-thumb methods. Her fat little hand was soft and white, her plump little body full of extravagant curves.