"I want you to tell me who I was before that—before him."
The Countess blinked her eyes rapidly, as if it hurried calculation.
"And I don't mean just before. I want to go 'way back, thousands of years—what I was first." He looked helplessly around the room, then glanced appealingly at the Countess. The flushed and friendly face was troubled.
"Well, I dunno." She pondered, eying her sitter closely. "Of course all things is possible to us, but sometimes the conditions ain't jest right and y'r c'ntrol can't git into rapport with them that has been gone more'n a few years. Now this thing you're after—I don't say it can't be done—f'r money."
"If I learned something good, I wouldn't care anything about the money," he ventured.
The Countess glanced up interestedly.
"That's the way to look at it, friend, but how much you got on you?"
"Twenty-two dollars," confessed Bean succinctly.
"Would you part from twenty, if you was told what you want to know?"
"Yes; I can't stand that other thing any longer."