tle more of the unmistakable smell of the
hospital, as well as old Maragon, Grand Master of the Lodge. He was
complaining and shaking a finger at me as he came toward my desk. He
didn't jump more than a foot when he got a look at my arm. His shaggy
gray eyebrows climbed way, way up his forehead in a mutely shouted
question.

I wouldn't give the old goat the time of day. When I dead-panned him,
he shrugged and lowered himself into the chair beside my desk.

"Thought you hated snakes, Lefty," he said.

"A guy could get used to almost anything, Grand Master," I said. "I
found a cobra under my pillow when I rolled out of the sack this
morning. A coral snake fell out of the folds of my towel when I went to
take a shower. Somebody stashed a bushmaster here in my locker to meet
me when I dressed for surgery. I'm getting almost fond of snakes."

Maragon semaphored doubt by squeezing his eyebrows down in a scowl.
"Even _real_ snakes?" he protested.

"It's the most artful hallucination I've ever experienced," I granted.
"This snake has weight, a cold feel and a scratchy scaliness. This new
witch of yours really knows her stuff. I just would have thought..." I
dribbled off, raising my shoulders.

"Thought what, Lefty?"

"Oh," I said. "That it was somehow beneath the dignity of the Grand
Master to drag himself down here to the hospital just to add a little
conviction to the hallucination. I mean, working up a big entrance, and
all this pretense of your seeing a snake."

His smile was a little weary. "Try a lift, Lefty," Maragon said.

He had finally overplayed his hand. Hallucinations don't respond to
telekinesis--there's nothing there to lift. I fixed on the rattler's
crouching head and lifted. The TK jerked the S-shaped curve out of his
neck. I could feel his coils fight my lift. At some moment there I must
have gotten the point that _this_ snake was real.

I guess I was screaming and shaking it from me for five minutes after
Maragon had unwrapped the coils from my arm.

"All right. All right. All right," I said to him, shaking my head. "So
it had no fangs. You've still got me sold. I'll go to Nevada for you."
I'd have gone clear to Hell to get away from that hallucinating witch he
had working on me. I'd gotten used to hallucinations--but who can get
used to the doubt that one of those dreadful visions is real? I'd had my
lesson.

* * * * *

It served me right, of course. It had begu