Ringa persevered. "Well, I got the dope, anyway. She's a Mrs. Brindon
and she's worried about her husband--he's gone dotty on some fluzie up
North. I read her hand last week. I told her they was trouble coming to
her along of a dark woman--she's one of these beer-haired blondes--what
I call a Wuerzburger blonde--then I showed it to her in the
heart-streak. 'Go ahead and tell me how it will come out,' she says. I
says: 'There's a peculiar condition in your hand that I ain't quite on
to,' I says. She says: 'Why, can't you read it?' Says I: 'Madam, if I
could read that well, I wouldn't be doing palms for no two bits a shot;
I'd be where Granthope is, with a fly-away studio and crowding it at
five plunks, per.' Then I says: 'Say, I hear Madam Spoll has great
gifts in predicting at all affairs of the heart. I ain't never been to
any of her circles, but why don't you shoot around next Thursday night
and try her out?' 'What'll I do?' she says. Then I told her to write
on a paper, 'Does he care more for Mae Phillips than he does for me, and
how will it come out?' She done it and sealed it up into an envelope I
give her."
[Illustration: "I told her they was trouble coming to her"]
"Good work!" said Madam Spoll. "I'll give you a rake-off if I land her.
I've got her ballot right here. I won't need to open it."
"Ain't that job worth a dollar to you as it stands?" Ringa asked
nervously. "I'll call it square and take my chances on the percentage."
"All right. It's a good sporting chance! Only I wish it was a man.
Women are too close." Madam Spoll opened her purse and paid him.
As Ringa left, Vixley asked: "By the way, how about this fellow Payson?
Do you think Lulu roped him?"
"I guess so. Lulu's done pretty well lately, and she's brought me
considerable business. She ought to be here by this time."
"I should think she'd be able to handle him alone."
"Don't you go and tell her so! The thing for her to do is to get a
manager, but I don't intend to queer my own game."
"What line is she workin' now? She's failed at about everything ever
since she begun with cards."
"Oh, she's doing the 'Egyptian egg' reading. Wouldn't that freeze you?
Lord, that was out of date twenty years go; but everything goes in San
Francisco."
"Say, ain't this town the penultimate limit!" Vixley ejaculated,
grinning. "Why, the dopes will stand in line all night for a chance to
be trimmed, and send their money by express, prepaid, if you let 'em.
Gert, sometimes I'm ashamed of myself for keepin' 'em waitin' so long!
Talk about takin' a gumdrop away from a sick baby; that's hard labor to
what we did for Bennett. What I want to know is, how do these damn
fools ever get all the money we take away from 'em? It don't look like
they had sense enough to cash a check."
"If I had one or two more decoys as good as Ringa and Lulu Ellis, I'd be
fixed all right. I could stake out all the dopes in town. Say,
Granthope could cut up a lot of easy cash if he'd agree to stand in. I
tried to tap him about this here Payson, and he wouldn't give me a tip."
"Perhaps he didn't know anything. You can't loosen up when you're wide
open, can you?"
"He generally knows all there is to know. The trouble is he's getting
too high-toned. Since he fitted up his new studio and butted into
society you can't get near him with nothing like a business proposition.
I believe he thinks he's too good for this place and will go East. He's
a nice boy, though. I ain't got nothing against him, only I wish he'd
help us out. Hello, here's Lulu. Good evening, Lulu, how's Egyptian
eggs to-day?"
Lulu Ellis was a dumpy, roly-poly, soft-eyed, soft-haired, pink-cheeked
young woman, as innocent appearing a person as ever lived on her wits.
Not that she had many of them, but a limited sagacity is enough to dupe
victims as willing to be cajoled as those who appeal to the Egyptian egg
for a sign of the future. Lulu's large, brown eyes were enough to
distract one's attention from her rule-of-thumb methods. Her fat little
hand was soft and white, her plump little body full of extravagant
curves.
"Say, Mr. Payson has come!" she exclaimed immediately, with considerable
excitement. "He's on the third row at the far end."