on the shoulder. "Nice work! Now I know why I get such
a kick out of working for you!" He whirled on Maude Tinker. "And you,
you foolish old biddy! How far do you think you would get with an act
like this against another telepath?"

She spat a curse at him in Romany. "So smart!" she sneered. "There isn't
another telepath in the city of Washington!"

That was a laugh. For its own safety the F.B.I. has its own gang of tame
TP's--they are all, of course, exceptionally short-range telepaths, and
we practically keep them under lock and key to make sure some important
thoughts don't leak in and out of their diseased minds.

"Send in Freeda Sayer," I said, leaning down to press the intercommute.
Freeda is a thick-ankled, thick-headed telepath. But stupid or not, she
is telepathic, and _is_ an acid test in these cases.

"Is this woman a telepath?" I asked Freeda, when she stumped in.

Freeda looked at Maude Tinker, her mouth hanging a little open. She
snuffled and walked quite close to the gypsy woman. "Yeah," she said.
"She knows I'm thinking her hem is torn." She turned her head with that
low-thyroid slowness to me. "Is that all, Mr. Tinker?" she asked.

Fred answered. "Swell, Freeda. That's all."

Freeda wandered out.

Fred said: "O.K., Gyp. What'll I do with her?"

"Sit down, Mrs. ... it is Mrs., isn't it? ... Mrs. Tinker, won't you
please?" I said in answer to his question. She took the chair Anita had
been using when Tony was pretending to be me, and I sat down in my
swivel across the desk from her.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Tinker," I said. "It's bad enough that you have
deliberately stayed in the District after all telepaths were most
stringently warned to register with us so that we could move them to
less sensitive areas. But I take it quite hard that you have tried to
embarrass me."

"That would take a little doing," she said. "You've got a heart like a
piece of flint. Let me see your palm!" she demanded, reaching
imperatively across my desk. Fred started to protest, but I passed my
hand across to her, leaning forward so that she could reach it.

Maude Tinker smoothed out my palm, rubbing her thumb over it as if to
clear away a veil of mystery, and bent close over it, her dark face
intense. She traced a line or two with her fingernail, and dropped my
hand to the walnut. "You have no mercy," she said. "You will use the
excuse that I tried to hinder the work of your department as a reason to
punish me severely--