V
A PSYCHIC VENTURE
"I beg your pardon, Doctor," said the Idiot, as he laid aside his morning paper and glanced over the gastronomic delights spread upon the breakfast table at Mrs. Smithers-Pedagog's high-class home for single gentlemen. "I don't wish to intrude upon this moment of blissful intercourse which you are enjoying with your allotment of stock in the Waffle Trust, but do you happen to have any A No. 1 eighteen-karat psychrobes among your patients that you could introduce me to? I need one in my business."
"Sike whats?" queried the Doctor, pausing in the act of lifting a sizable section of the eight of diamonds done in batter to his lips.
"Psychrobes," said the Idiot. "You know what I mean—a clairvoyant, a medium, a sike—somebody in the spiritual inter-State commerce business, who knows his or her job right down to the ground and back again."
"H'm! Why—yes, I know one or two mediums," said the Doctor.
"Strictly up-to-date and reliable?" said the Idiot. "Ready to trot in double harness?"
"Oh, as to their reliability as mediums I can't testify," said the Doctor. "You never can tell about those people, but I will say that in all respects other than their psychic indulgences I have always found those I know wholly reliable."
"You mean they wouldn't take a watch off a bureau when the owner wasn't looking, or beat a suffering corporation out of a nickel if they had a chance?" said the Idiot.