"Oh, I ain't out for nothing but paper-sports and grafters. I know a good thing when I see it. I hope there'll be something doing worth while in this Payson business. He may show up to-night. Lulu claims she conned him good."
"I hope I'll have a slice off him," said Professor Vixley, his beady, black eyes shining. "We got to get up a new game for him before we pass him down the line."
"Oh, if anybody can I guess we can; there's more'n one way to kill a cat, besides a-kissing of it to death."
"Yes, smotherin' it in hot air, for instance!" Vixley grinned.
"They's one thing I wish," said Madam Spoll, "and that is that we had a regular blue-book like they have in the East. Why, they tell me there's six thousand names printed for Boston alone. If we had some way of getting a lead with this Payson it would be lots easier. But I expect the San Francisco mediums will get better organized some day and coöperate more shipshape."
Here Mr. Spoll entered, a tall, thin, bony, wild-eyed individual with a rolling pompadour of red hair, his face spattered with freckles. He walked on tiptoe, as if at a funeral, bowed to the Professor, coughed into his hand, and took up the letters Madam Spoll had been investigating, putting down some new ones.
"Oh, here's that 'S.F.B.' that Ringa told me about," she said, glancing at an envelope. "Is Ringa come in yet?"
"I ain't seen him; but it's early," said Spoll. "He'll show up all right. I'll send him right in."
"Is Mr. Perry in front?"
"You bet!" Spoll was still tiptoeing about the room on some mysterious errand. "Perry ain't likely to lose a chance to make a dollar, not him!"