"You can't make brains out o' soap," retorted the medium.
"And you can't make money out of dirt.
"We'll see who has the money six months from now."
"It's a fair enough bargain. I take the girl, you take the money. I'm satisfied." Granthope arose and yawned. "Oh," he added, "did you know Payson had a partner named Riley? He was drowned in seventy-seven."
"That's funny. Queer how things come our way! Mrs. Riley is here in the front room with a test. She was tried for the murder of one of her husbands. Gert's goin' to shoot her up with it to-night. You better go in and see the fun. She'll give it to her good."
"I think I will," said the palmist.
He left Vixley plunged in thought, and walked out.
Turning into the audience-room he sat down on a chair in the rear. The place was almost filled. His eyes scanned the assembly carefully, roving from one spectator to another. On a side seat near him, a party of four, young girls and men, sat giggling and chewing gum. The rest of the company showed a placid vacancy of expression or lukewarm expectancy.
Madam Spoll at the organ and her husband with his violin, had, meanwhile, been playing a dreary piece of music, "to induce the proper conditions," as she had announced from the platform. They stopped, retarding a minor chord, and the medium went to the table and began to handle the tests, rearranging them, putting some aside, bringing others forward, in an abstracted manner. Then, looking up with a self-satisfied smile, she spoke:
"I want to say something to the new-comers and skeptics here to-night in explanation of these tests. Them who have thoroughly investigated the subject and are familiar with every phase of mediumship, understand, of course, that these objects are placed here merely to attract magnetism to the sitter and induce the proper conditions, so that your spirit friends will be able to communicate with you. This phase of mediumship is called psychometry, but if I'd stop to explain just what that means, I wouldn't have time to give any readings. Now, it won't be possible to get any messages unless you come here in the proper mood to receive them. You must send out your best thought and do all you can to assist, or else my guides won't be able to establish communication on the spirit plane. If you merely come here only to laugh and to make a scoff of the proceedings, I'll have to ask you to leave before I begin, for they's many here to-night who are honestly in search of the truth, seeking to communicate with the dear, loved ones beyond on the other side."