as Professor Pietro Parducci, the well known medium.

"Medium what?" I says, when the Kid pulls that one.

The Kid frowns at me and turns to his new found friends.

"Don't mind Foolish here," he tells 'em, "he's got the idea that
everything is crooked. He thinks the war was a frame-up for the
movies, and the Kaiser got double-crossed, but he ain't a bad guy at
that. He knows more about makin' money than a lathe hand at the mint."
He jerks his thumb at Honest Dan and swings around on me. "This guy
and me was brung up together," he explains, "and before I went into the
fight game we was as close as ninety-nine and a hundred. He's been all
over the world since then, he says so himself, but just now he's up
against it. It seems he was runnin' a pool room on Twenty-Eighth
Street and he give the wrong winner of the Kentucky Derby to the
precinct captain. The next mornin' the captain give every cop in the
station house a axe and Dan's address. His friend here is a now,
whosthis and--"

Honest Dan pulls what I bet he thought was a pleasant smile. It
reminded me more of a laughin' hyena.

"One minute!" he butts in. "My friend, the world-renowed Professor
Parducci, is a medium, a mystic and a swami. He's the seventh son of a
seventh son, born with a veil and spent two years in Indiana with the
yogi. He can peer into the future or gaze back at the past. He is in
direct communication with the spirits of the dear departed and as a
crystal gazer and palmist he stands alone!"

"That's a great line of patter, Dan," says the Kid, "but we met a guy
on the trip back that had the English language layin' down and rollin'
over when he snapped his fingers. Generous gobs of Gazoopis and
likable, loyal Lithuanians! Can you tie that?"

I was still lookin' over the gloomy guy with the name that sounded like
a brand of olive oil, and I decided he was the bunk. I asked him could
he tell my fortune, and he draws himself up and claims he's not in
harmony just now. That was the tip-off to me, and I figures he has
come out to take the Kid for his bankroll. I knowed he couldn't tell
no fortunes the minute I seen him. He didn't look to me as if he could
tell his own name, and I bet all the spirits he ever communicated with
was called private stock. The end of his nose was as red as a four
alarm fire and the back of his collar was all wore off from where he
had kept throwin' back his head so's the saloon keepers could meet
expen