“Well, some hard cases come my way. So long as we can make both ends meet what more do we want? I expect they will look after us all right.”
“They have let down a lot of other poor mediums who did good work in their day.”
“It’s the rich folk that are to blame, not the Spirit-people,” said Tom Linden hotly. “It makes me see red when I remember these folk, Lady This and Countess That, declaring all the comfort they have had, and then leaving those who gave it to die in the gutter or rot in the workhouse. Poor old Tweedy and Soames and the rest all living on old-age pensions and the papers talking of the money that mediums make, while some damned conjuror makes more than all of us put together by a rotten imitation with two tons of machinery to help him.”
“Don’t worry, dear,” cried the medium’s wife, putting her thin hand caressingly upon the tangled mane of her man. “It all comes level in time and everybody pays the price for what they have done.”
Linden laughed loudly. “It’s my Welsh half that comes out when I flare up. Let the conjurors take their dirty money and let the rich folk keep their purses shut. I wonder what they think money is for. Paying death duties is about the only fun some of them seem to get out of it. If I had their money....”
There was a knock at the door.
“Please, sir, your brother Silas is below.”
The two looked at each other with some dismay.
“More trouble,” said Mrs. Linden sadly.
Linden shrugged his shoulders. “All right, Susan!” he cried. “Tell him I’ll be down. Now, dear, you keep him going and I’ll be with you in a quarter of an hour.”