He looked the thin, black-eyed stranger over calmly and judicially. “You’ll be one as lives by ’is wits, an’ yet more from the lack of ’em in other people, especially femyles,” the proprietor declared. “Yer one o’ ten tharsand in this tarn as picks up easy money, if so be they’s no questions arsked. But if I ain’t mistook, yer’ve come a cropper, an’ yer ain’t much used to sweatin’ for yer salary. But that don’t explyne w’y yer ’ad to tumble into this plyce like the devil was drivin’ yer, an’ put darn a swig o’ ’ot coffee to drarn yer conscience, like. Clay Street wa’n’t afire, nor yet in no dynger o’ bein’ flooded, so I’m switched if I twig yer gyme!” “Well, I _have_ got a conscience,” began the stranger, “though I’m no worse than many what make simulations to be better, and I never give nobody nothin’ they didn’t want, and wasn’t willin’ to pay for, and why shouldn’t I get it as well as any other party? Seein’ you don’t know any of the parties, and with the understandin’ that all I say is in confidence between friends, professional like, I’ll tell you the misfortunes that have overcame me.” So he began THE STORY OF THE EX-MEDIUM I am Professor Vango, trance, test, business, materialisin’, sympathetic, harmonic, inspirational, and developin’ medium, and independent slate-writer. Before I withdrew from the profession, them as I had comforted and reunited said that I was by far the best in existence. My tests was of the sort that gives satisfaction and convinces even the most sceptical. My front parlor was thronged every Sunday and Tuesday evenin’ with ladies, the most genteel and elegant, and gentlemen. When I really learned my powers, I was a palm and card reader. Madame August, the psychic card-reader and Reno Seeress, give me the advice that put me in communication. She done it after a joint readin’ we give for the benefit of the Astral Seers’ Protective Union. “Vango,” she says—I was usin’ the name “Vango” already; it struck me as real tasty—“Vango,” she says, “you’re wastin’ your talents. These is the days when men speak by inspiration. You got genius; but you ain’t no palmist.” “Why ain’t I?” I says, knowin’ all the time that they was somethin’ wrong; “don’t I talk as good as any?” “You’re a genius,” says she, “and you lead where others follow; your idea of tellin’ every woman that she can write stories if she tries is one of the best ever conceived, but if you don’t mind me sayin’ it, as one professional to another, it’s your face that’s wrong.” “My face?” says I.