Page:Wilson - Bunker bean.djvu/75

Rh but you mus' take heart, for a very powerful band on the other side is guardin' you night an' day. They tell me your initials is 'B. B.' You are employed somewheres in the daytime. I see a big place with lots of other people employed there"

The Countess paused. Bean waited in silence.

"Here"—she came out of the clouds that menaced her sitter—"take this pad an' write a question on it. Don't lemme see it, mind! When you got it all wrote out, fold it up tight an hold it against your forehead. Never leggo of it, not once!"

Bean wrote, secretly, well below the table's edge.

"Who was I in my last incarnation?"

He tore the small sheet from the pad, folded it tightly and, with elbows on the table, pressed it to his brow. If the Countess answered that question, then indeed was she a seer.

She took up the pad from which he had torn the sheet.

"Concentrate," she admonished him. "Let the whole curnt of your magnetism flow into that question. Excuse me! I left the slate in the nex' room. My control will answer you on the slate."

She withdrew between the curtains, but reappeared very soon. Bean was concentrating.

"That'll do," said the Countess."Here!" She presented him with a double slate and a moist sponge. "Wipe it clean."