t, announced:

"Now will I read ze head. Will some small boys please come up and bring
their heads and bumps?"

Coaxing finally brought a half-dozen grinning youngsters of eight or ten
to the platform. From the pocket of the last to respond protruded the
unmistakable cover of a dime-novel. Him the professor seized first, and
having gravely examined his head, announced, "Ladees and gentlemans, for
this boy I predict a great future. Never have I seen such sign of
literary taste. Yes, he will be great--unless he go west to kill ze
Indian, and ze Indian see him first."

On turning to the head of the second boy, the phrenologist started,
looked more sharply, and slowly straightening up, announced, "Ladees and
gentlemans, I have made ze great discovery. This boy some days you will
be proud to know. Never have I seen such a lovely bump--for eat ze pie!
And any kind of pie you will name. He don't care. He will eat it."

And so, to continued laughter, he went on, finding remarkable cake-bumps,
holiday-bumps, and picnic-bumps, and proportionately under-developed
school and chore-bumps--with the exception of one glowing example, which
finally proved to have been developed by a baseball bat.

Then came the "mind-reading." Placing a small blackboard on the front of
the platform, facing the audience, the professor seated himself in a
chair ten feet behind it, and invited someone to step to the board and
write.

"All I ask is," announced the mind-reader, "please write not too fast,
and fix ze mind on what you write. And by ze thought-wave will I tell it,
letter by letter."

The first to respond wrote the name of his father, a doctor. Expecting
only some humorous guess as to what was written, the audience was
somewhat surprised when the professor spelled out the name correctly,
only adding the humorous touch of "mud," hastily corrected to "M. D." As
others followed with figures, and more difficult names and words, the
interest of the audience began to take on a new tone.

The last of the first party which had stepped forward to write was the
over-dressed young man Alex had poked some of his fun at, and who was
bent on "showing him up."

He wrote: "You are a faker."

"Explain to ze audience how I do it, zen, Mr. Peters," retorted the
professor. In some confusion Peters sought his seat, and the minister
approached the board.

The interest of the audience had now become serious and silent. Even Kate
Orr, though knowing there