“Yer was mixed up in a narsty piece o’ business,” said Coffee John, after the Freshman had concluded his tale, “an’ it strikes me as yer gort wot yer bloomin’ well desarved. I don’t rightly know w’ether yer expect us to larff or to cry, but I’m inclined to fyver a grin w’erever possible, as ’elpin’ the appetite an’ thereby bringin’ in tryde. So I move we accept the kid’s apology for bein’ farnd in me shop, an’ perceed with the festivities o’ the evenink. I see our friend ’ere with the long finger-nails is itchin’ to enliven the debyte, an’ I’m afryde if we don’t let ’im ’ave ’is sye art, ’e’ll bloomin’ well bust with it.”

He looked the thin, black-eyed stranger over calmly and judicially. “You’ll be one as lives by ’is wits, an’ yet more from the lack of ’em in other people, especially femyles,” the proprietor declared. “Yer one o’ ten tharsand in this tarn as picks up easy money, if so be they’s no questions arsked. But if I ain’t mistook, yer’ve come a cropper, an’ yer ain’t much used to sweatin’ for yer salary. But that don’t explyne w’y yer ’ad to tumble into this plyce like the devil was drivin’ yer, an’ put darn a swig o’ ’ot coffee to drarn yer conscience, like. Clay Street wa’n’t afire, nor yet in no dynger o’ bein’ flooded, so I’m switched if I twig yer gyme!”

“Well, I have got a conscience,” began the stranger, “though I’m no worse than many what make simulations to be better, and I never give nobody nothin’ they didn’t want, and wasn’t willin’ to pay for, and why shouldn’t I get it as well as any other party? Seein’ you don’t know any of the parties, and with the understandin’ that all I say is in confidence between friends, professional like, I’ll tell you the misfortunes that have overcame me.” So he began

THE STORY OF THE EX-MEDIUM

I am Professor Vango, trance, test, business, materialisin’, sympathetic, harmonic, inspirational, and developin’ medium, and independent slate-writer. Before I withdrew from the profession, them as I had comforted and reunited said that I was by far the best in existence. My tests was of the sort that gives satisfaction and convinces even the most sceptical. My front parlor was thronged every Sunday and Tuesday evenin’ with ladies, the most genteel and elegant, and gentlemen.

When I really learned my powers, I was a palm and card reader. Madame August, the psychic card-reader and Reno Seeress, give me the advice that put me in communication. She done it after a joint readin’ we give for the benefit of the Astral Seers’ Protective Union.

“Vango,” she says—I was usin’ the name “Vango” already; it struck me as real tasty—“Vango,” she says, “you’re wastin’ your talents. These is the days when men speak by inspiration. You got genius; but you ain’t no palmist.”

“Why ain’t I?” I says, knowin’ all the time that they was somethin’ wrong; “don’t I talk as good as any?”

“You’re a genius,” says she, “and you lead where others follow; your idea of tellin’ every woman that she can write stories if she tries is one of the best ever conceived, but if you don’t mind me sayin’ it, as one professional to another, it’s your face that’s wrong.”

“My face?” says I.

“Your face and your hands and your shape and the balance of your physicality,” says she. “They want big eyes—brown is best, but blue will do—and lots of looks and easy love-makin’ ways that you can hang a past to, and I’m frank to say that you ain’t got ’em. You have got platform talents, and you’ll be a phenomena where you can’t get near enough to ’em to hold hands. Test seances is the future of this business. Take a few developin’ sittin’s and you’ll see.”

For the time, disappointment and chagrin overcome me. Often and often since, I have said that sorrow is a means of development for a party. That’s where I learnt it. Next year I was holdin’ test seances in my own room and makin’ spirit photographs with my pardner for ample renumeration. Of course, I made my mistakes, but I can assert without fear of successful contradiction that I brought true communication as often as any of ’em.

Once I sized up a woman that wore black before I had asked the usual questions—which is a risky thing to do, and no medium that values a reputation will attempt it—and told her about her husband that had passed out and give a message, and she led me on and wrote me up for them very papers that I was advertisin’ in and almost ruined my prospecks. You get such scoffers all the time, only later on you learn to look out and give ’em rebukes from the spirits. It ain’t no use tryin’ to get ahead of us, as I used to tell the people at my seances that thought I was a collusion, because they’ve only got theirselves; but we’ve got ourselves and the spirits besides.

It wasn’t long in the course of eventualities before I was ordained by the Spirit Psychic Truth Society, and elected secretary of the union, and gettin’ my percentages from test and trance meetin’s at Pythian Hall. I was popular with the professionals, which pays, because mediums as a class is a little nervous, and—not to speak slanderous of a profession that contains some of the most gifted scientists—a set of knockers.

Only I wasn’t satisfied. I was ambitious in them days, and I wanted to make my debut in materialisin’, which takes a hall of your own and a apparatus and a special circle for the front row, but pays heavy on the investment. Try every way I could, with developin’ circles and private readin’s and palms extra, I could never amass the funds for one first-class spirit and a cabinet, which ought to be enough to start on. Then one night—it was a grand psychic reunion and reception to our visitin’ brothers from Portland—She come to the circle.

Our publication—I united with my other functionaries that of assistant editor of Unseen Hands—stigmatised it afterward as the grandest demonstration of hidden forces ever seen on this hemisphere. It was the climax to my career. I was communicatin’ beautiful, and fortune favoured my endeavours. When I pumped ’em, they let me see that which they had concealed, and when I guessed I guessed with amazin’ accuracy. I told a Swede all about his sweetheart on the other plane, and the colour of her hair, and how happy she was, and how it was comin’ out all right, and hazarded that her name was Tina, and guessed right the first trial. I recollect I was tellin’ him he was a physie, and didn’t he sometimes feel a influence he couldn’t account for, and hadn’t he ever tried to establish communication with them on the spirit plane, and all he needed was a few developin’ sittin’s—doin’ it neat an’ professional, you know, and all of the other mediums on the platform acquiescin’—when a woman spoke up from the back of the room. That was the first time that ever I seen her.

She was a middle-sized, fairish sort of a woman, in mournin’, which I hadn’t comprehended, or I’d ’a’ found the article that she sent up for me to test her influence, long before. As soon as she spoke, I knew she’d come to be comforted. She was a tidy sort of a woman, and her eyes was dark, sort of between a brown and a black. Her shape was nice and neat, and she had a straightish sort of a nose, with a curve into it. She was dead easy. I seen that she had rings on her fingers and was dressed real tasty, and right there it come to me, just like my control sent it, that a way was openin’ for me to get my cabinet and a stock of spirits.

“Will you please read my article?” she says. Bein’ against the Æsthetics of the profession to let a party guide you like that, Mrs. Schreiber, the Egyptian astral medium, was for rebukin’ her. I superposed, because I seen my cabinet growin’.

“I was strongly drawed to the token in question,” I says, and then Mrs. Schreiber, who was there to watch who sent up what, motioned me to a locket on the table.

“When I come into the room, I seen this party with a sweet influence hoverin’ over her. Ain’t it a little child?” Because by that time I had her sized up.

I seen her eyes jump the way they always do when you’re guided right, and I knowed I’d touched the achin’ spot. While I was tellin’ her about my control and the beautiful light that was hoverin’ over her, I palmed and opened the locket. I got the picture out—they’re all alike, them lockets—and behind it was a curl of gold hair and the name “Lillian.” I got the locket back on the table, and the spirits guided me to it for her test. When I told her that the spirit callin’ for her was happy in that brighter sphere and sent her a kiss, and had golden hair, and was called “Lillian” in the flesh plane, she was more overcame than I ever seen a party at a seance. I told her she was a medium. I could tell it by the beautiful dreams she had sometimes.

Right here, Mrs. Schreiber shook her head, indicatin’ that I was travellin’ in a dangerous direction. Developin’ sittin’s is saved for parties when you can’t approach ’em on the departed dear ones. In cases like the one under consideration, the most logical course, you comprehend, is to give private test sittin’s. But I knowed what I was doin’. I told her I could feel a marvellous power radiate from her, and her beautiful dreams was convincin’ proof. She expressed a partiality to be developed.

When I got her alone in the sittin’, holdin’ her hand and gettin’ her to concentrate on my eyes, she made manifest her inmost thoughts. She was a widow runnin’ a lodgin’-house. Makin’ a inference from her remarks, I seen that she hadn’t no money laid by, but only what she earned from her boarders. The instalment plan was better than nothin’. She seized on the idea that I could bring Lillian back if I had proper conditions to work with. In four busy weeks, I was enabled by her magnanimity to open a materialisin’ circle of my own, with a cabinet and a self-playin’ guitar and four good spirit forms. I procured the cabinet second-hand, which was better, because the joints worked easier, and I sent for the spirits all the way to a Chicago dealer to get the best. They had luminous forms and non-duplicated faces, that convinced even the most sceptical. The firm very liberally throwed in a slate trick for dark cabinets and the Fox Sisters’ rappin’ table.

I took one of them luminous forms, the littlest one, and fixed it with golden curls painted phosphorescent. Mrs. Schreiber and the rest, all glad to be partakers in my good fortune, was hired to come on the front seats and join hands with each other across the aisle whenever one of the spirits materialised too far forward toward the audience. We advertised heavy, and the followin’ Sunday evenin’ had the gratification to greet a numerous and cultured assemblage. I was proud and happy, because steppin’ from plain test control to materialisin’ is a great rise for any medium.

Mrs. Higgins—that was her name, Mrs. Clarissa Higgins—come early all alone. I might ’a’ brought Lillian right away, only that would be inelegant. First we sang, “Show Your Faces,” to get the proper psychie current of mutuality. Etherealisin’ and a few tunes on a floatin’ guitar was next. When my control reassured itself, I knowed that the time had came, and let out the first spirit. A member of the Spirit Truth Society on the front seat recognised it for a dear one, and carried on real realistic and natural. I let it vanish. The next one was Little Hookah, the spirit of the Egyptian dancer, that used to regale the Pharaohs in the depths of the Ghizeh pyramid. I touched off a music-box to accompany her for a skirt-dance with her robes. I done that all myself; it was a little invention of my own, and was recognised with universal approbation.

That was the time for Lillian to manifest herself, and I done it artistic. First she rapped and conversed with me in the spirit whisper back of the curtains. You could hear Mrs. Higgins in the audience drawin’ in her breath sort of awesome.

I says for the spirit, in a little pipin’ voice, “Tell mamma not to mourn, because her lamentations hinders my materialisation. The birds is singin’, and it is, oh, so beautiful on this shore.”

Then commandin’ the believers on the front seats to join hands in a circle of mutuality, in order to assist the sister on the other shore to put on the astral symbols of the flesh, I materialised her nice and easy and gradual.

We was prepared for demonstrations on the part of Mrs. Higgins, so when she advanced I began to let it vanish, and the psychie circle of clasped hands stopped her while I done the job up good and complete. She lost conscientiousness on the shoulder of Mrs. Schreiber.

Not borin’ you, gentlemen, with the details of my career, my business and religious relations with Mrs. Higgins was the beginnin’ of my success. Myself and the little circle of believers—that guarded the front seats from the protrusions of sceptical parties that come to scoff, and not infrequent come up as earnest inquirers after my control had passed—we lived easy on the proceeds.

Mrs. Higgins would bring tears to your eyes, she was that grateful. She repaired the place for me so it was the envy of the unsuccessful in the profession. She had it fixed with stucco like a grotto, and wax calla lilies and mottoes and beautiful spirit paintin’s (Mrs. Schreiber done them out of the air while she was under control—a hundred dollars apiece she charged), and nice curtains over the cabinet, embroidered in snakes’ eyes inside of triangles and discobuluses. Mrs. Higgins capitalised the expense. Whenever we done poor business, we originated some new manifestations for Mrs. Higgins. She received ample renumeration. She seen Lillian every Tuesday and Sunday. Very semi-occasionally, when the planetary conditions favoured complete manifestation, I used to let her hug Lillian and talk to her. That was a tremendous strain, involvin’ the use of ice to produce the proper degree of grave cold, and my blood nearly conglomerated whenever circumstances rendered it advisable.

All human relationships draws to a close in time. After seven years of the most ideal communications between myself and Mrs. Higgins and the rest of the Psychic Truth Society, they came a time one evenin’ when I seen she was missin’. Next day, we received a message that she was undisposed. We sent Madam La Farge, the medical clairvoyant, to give her treatment, and word come back that them designin’ relatives, that always haunt the last hours of the passin’ spirit with mercenary entreaties, had complete domination over her person. I visited to console her myself, and was rebuked with insinuations that was a insult to my callin’. The next day we learned that she had passed out. We was not even admitted to participate in the funeral obsequies.

The first Sunday that she was in the spirit Mrs. Schreiber was all for materialisin’ her. I favoured omittin’ her, thinkin’ it would be more fittin’, you understand, and more genteel. But we had some very wealthy sceptics in the circle we was tryin’ to convince, and Mrs. Schreiber said they’d expect it. Against my better counsels, seein’ that Mrs. Higgins was a mighty fine woman and give me my start, and I got a partiality for her, I took down my best spirit form and broadened it some, because Mrs. Higgins had got fleshy before she passed out.

After Little Hookah done her regular dance that Sunday night, I got the hymn started, and announcin’ that the spirit that rapped was a dear one known to ’em all, I pulled out the new form that I had just fixed, and waited for the tap on the cabinet to show that all was ready. I didn’t like to do it. I felt funny, like something would go wrong. But I pulled the string, and then—O God!—there—in the other corner of the cabinet—was Mrs. Higgins—Mrs. Higgins holdin’ her arm across the curtains and just lookin’ at me like her eyes was tearin’ through me!

They seen somethin’ was wrong, and Mrs. Schreiber got the robe away before they found me—they said my control was too strong—and some said I was drunk. I did get drunk, too, crazy drunk, next day—and when I come round Mrs. Schreiber tried to do cabinet work with me on the front seat—and there I seen her—in her corner—just like she used to sit—and I never went back.

But a man has got to eat, and when my money was gone, and I wasn’t so scared as I was at first, I tried to do test seances, sayin’ to myself maybe she wouldn’t mind that—and the first article I took up, there she was in the second row, holdin’—oh, I couldn’t get away of it—holdin’ a locket just like she done the first night I seen her.

Then I knew I’d have to quit, and I hid from the circle—they wanted me because Mrs. Schreiber couldn’t make it go. I slept in the Salvation Army shelter, so as not to be alone, and she let me be for a while.

But to-day I seen a party in the street that I used to give tests to, and he said he’d give me two bits to tell him about his mine—and I was so broke and hungry, I give it a trial and—there She was—in the shadow by the bootblack awnin’—just lookin’ and lookin’!

The little medium broke off with a tremor that made the glasses shake.