"Have you had a trout dinner yet?" said Jackson.
"Yes. Out at the Lake the other day."
"I mean a real one—cooked by a real cook—all the trimmings."
"No, I can't say that I have."
Jackson paused, drummed on the arm of his chair, and swallowed hard. "I've got the best cook in the Middle West," he observed.
"That's going some."
"You think you've eaten, don't you? Well, you haven't. You ought to try my cook."
"That would be fine," said Skinner.
Skinner knew exactly what Jackson would say next. It was wonderful, he thought, almost uncanny, how the curmudgeon was doing just what he had schemed out that he would do—willed him to do. He felt like a magician operating the wires for some manikin to dance at the other end or a hypnotist directing a subject.
Things were going swimmingly for Jackson, too. He felt that he had executed his little scheme very well, without any danger of being found out or even suspected, yet he had never known things to fall in line as they were doing now. Still, he flattered himself it was good management. For Jackson was not a believer in luck.