Over at the barber shop, I watched Jake cut a head of hair. I wasn't too interested in the man Jake was working on he lived four or five miles out of town and at the moment, I figured that I'd better confine my work to the people in the village.
Before I left, I had Jake plenty worried about the gambling he'd been doing in the back room at the pool hall and had him almost ready to make a clean breast of it to his wife.
I went over to the pool hall. Mike was sitting back of the counter with his hat on, reading the baseball scores in the morning paper. I got a day-old paper and pretended to read it.
Mike laughed and asked me when I'd learned to read, so I laid it on good and thick. When I left, I knew, just as soon as I was out the door, he'd go down into the basement and dump all the moonshine down the drain, and before too long, I'd get him to close up the back room.
Over at the cheese factory, I didn't have much chance to work on Ben. The farmers were bringing in their milk and he was too busy for me to really get into his mind. But I did manage to make him think of what would happen if Jake ever caught him with Jake's wife. And I knew when I could catch him alone, I could do a top-notch job on him, for I saw he scared easy.
And that's the way it went.
It was tough work and at times I felt it was just too much of a job. But then I'd sit down and remind myself that it was my duty to keep on that for some reason this power had been given me and that it was up to me to use it for all it was worth.
And furthermore, I was not to use it for myself, for any selfish ends, but for the good of other people.
I don't think I missed a person in the village.
Remember how we wondered if there might not be unseen fiaws in this plan of ours? We went over it most carefully and could find none, yet all of us feared that some might show up in actual practice. Now I can report there is one. It is this: