a fly-away studio and crowding it at five plunks, per.' Then I says: 'Say, I hear Madam Spoll has great gifts in predicting at all affairs of the heart. I ain't never been to any of her circles, but why don't you shoot around next Thursday night and try her out?' 'What'll I do?' she says. Then I told her to write on a paper, 'Does he care more for Mae Phillips than he does for me, and how will it come out?' She done it and sealed it up into an envelope I give her."
"I told her they was trouble coming to her"
"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 Lord, that was out of date twenty years go; but everything goes in San Francisco."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.
"Say, Mr. Payson has come!" she exclaimed immediately, with considerable excitement. "He's on the third row at the far end."
Madam Spoll became alert. "Did you see his test?"
"No, he was here when I come," Lulu replied.
"Go out and get Spoll." Madam Spoll spoke sharply. "We've got to fix this thing up right now."
Lulu returned to say: "There's such a crowd coming in he can't leave, but he says it was a gold watch with a seal fob."
"All right, so far," said the Madam. "Now, Lulu, are you sure of what you told me?"
Lulu's reply was interrupted by the entrance of Francis Granthope, in opera hat and Inverness cape, making a vivid contrast to the disreputable aspect of Professor Vixley. He greeted the three conspirators with his customary elegance.
"I'm sorry I had nothing about Payson when you rang me up, Madam Spoll, but just afterward his daughter came in for a reading. Queer, wasn't it?"
"God, that's a stroke of luck!" said Vixley eagerly. "I say, Frank, you can work her while we handle the old man, and we'll clean up a fortune. They say he's a millionaire." Vixley's little eyes gleamed.
"Let's hear what Lulu has to say, first," said Madam Spoll.
"Why, I didn't get much," Lulu confessed. "He said he dropped in by accident as he was passing by, to see what Egyptian egg astrology was. I got his name off of some letters he had in his overcoat pocket. I made him hang it on the hall hat-rack. I did all I could for him——"
"Did he get gay with you?" Professor Vixley interrupted. He had been overtly enjoying Lulu's plump charms with his rapacious eyes.
Granthope smiled; Lulu Ellis colored slightly.
"No, he didn't! I don't do none of that kind of work!"
"The more fool you!" Madam Spoll retorted. "He's an old man, ain't he?"
"Sixty," said Vixley, "I looked him up."
"Then he ought to be easy as chewing gum," said Madam Spoll.
Granthope lighted a cigarette and listened with a mildly cynical expression.
"He ain't that kind, though," Lulu insisted. "I ain't altogether a fool, after all. Why, he don't even go to church!"
Her three auditors laughed aloud, the Professor raucously, Madam Spoll with a bubbling chuckle, Granthope with scarcely more than an audible smile.
"That settles it, then. You're coming on, Lulu! What else do you know?" said Madam Spoll.
"Well, he has a daughter——"
"Yes, Granthope knows all about that," from the Madam.
"Her name is Clytie," said Granthope. "Twenty-seven."
"Is she a looker?" asked Vixley.
Granthope turned to him and gave him a patronizing glance. "You wouldn't think so, Professor. She's hardly your style. But she's good enough for me!" He languidly flipped the ash from his cigarette and took his pose again.
Lulu went on: "I think he had a love affair before he was married, but I couldn't quite get it. I didn't dare to fish very much. And that's about all I got."
"That's plenty, Lulu. You can go now. Here's a dollar for you and much obliged for passing him up."
"Oh, thank you," said Lulu. "I'm afraid it ain't worth that much. He gave me a dollar himself, though I don't charge but four bits, usually."
"Lord, what a fool!" said Vixley, watching her go out. "That girl won't ever get nowhere, she's too innocent. She knows no more about real life than a boiled egg."
"She's all right for me, though," Madam Spoll replied. "That's just the kind I need in my business. She fools 'em every time. They ain't nothing like a good blusher for a stool-pigeon, you take my word for it. Lulu's all right in her place." She turned to wash her hands at a bowl in the corner.
"Well," said Vixley, crossing his legs, "are you coming in with us, Frank?"
"It looks pretty good to me, so far. But it depends. What have you got about Payson, anyway?" Granthope's tone was languid.
Madam Spoll winked at Vixley, as she wiped her hands behind the palmist's back.
"Why," Vixley replied, "Payson's in wool and is director of a bank, besides. He's a square-head with a high forehead, and them