"Fancy being pipped by a couple of suckers like these. Farmers, indeed! Why don't you call yourselves parsons? How much do
you want?" After a prolonged haggling, Hamar and Curtis agreed to take fifty
dollars; and, considering their penniless condition, they were by no
means dissatisfied with their bargain. They were now ready to go, and looking round for Kelson, found him
engaged in a desperate _tête-à-tête_ with the young lady at the bar,
who, despite her avowed lack of faith in mankind, counted half the
room her friends. She promised Kelson that she would meet him at eight
o'clock that evening; but as both she and he were quite used to making
such promises and subsequently forgetting all about them, their
rencontre resulted in only one thing, namely, in furnishing the three
allies with the nucleus of the big fortune they intended making. On finding themselves outside the dive Hamar, Curtis and Kelson first
of all divided the spoil. They then went to a clothes depot and rigged
themselves out in fashionably cut garments; after which they took
rooms at a presentable hotel in Kearney Street, next door to Knobble's
boot store. Then, dressed for the first time in their lives like Nob
Hill dukes, they paraded the pet resorts of the beau-monde--of the
bonanza and railroad set--and making eyes at all the pretty wives and
daughters they met, cogitated fresh devices for making money. As they
sauntered across Pacific Avenue, in the direction of Californian
Street, Kelson suddenly gave vent to a whistle. "What the deuce is wrong with you?" Hamar exclaimed. "Seen your
grandmother's ghost?" "No! but I've seen the inner readings of that lady yonder," Kelson
replied, indicating with a jerk of his finger a fashionably dressed
woman walking towards them on the other side of the road. "The deuce
knows how it all comes to me, but I know everything about her, just
the same as I did with the girl in the dive--though I've never seen
her before. She is the wife of D.D. Belton, the cotton magnate, who
lives in a big, white house at the corner of Powell Street--and a
beauty, I can assure you. Supposed to be most devoted to her husband,
she is now on her way to keep an appointment with the Rev. J.T. Calthorpe of Sancta Maria's Church in Appleyard Street, with whom she
has been holding clandestine meetings for the past six months." "Whew!" Hamar ejaculated. "You speak as if it was all being pumped
into you by some external agency--automatically." "That's just about what I feel!" Kelson said, "I feel as if it were
some one else saying all this--some one else speaking through me. Yet
I know all about that woman, just as much as if I had been acquainted
with her all my life!" "It's the first power," Hamar said excitedly, "the power of
divination. It takes that form with you, and the form of card tricks
with Ed--with me nothing so far." "But what shall I do?" Kelson cried. "How can I benefit by it?" "How can't you?" Curtis growled. "Why, blackmail her! If it is true,
she will pay you anything to keep your mouth shut. If once you can
tell a woman's secret, your future's made. All San Francisco will be
at your mercy--God knows who'll escape! After her at once, you idiot!" "Now?" Kelson gasped. "Yes! Now! Follow her to Calthorpe's and waylay her as she comes out. You can refer to us as witnesses." "I feel a bit of a blackguard," Kelson pleaded. "You look it, anyway," Curtis grinned. "But cheer up--it's the
clothes. Clothes are responsible for everything!" After a little persuasion Kelson gave in, but he had to make haste as
the lady was nearly out of sight. She took a taxi from the stand
opposite Kitson's hotel, and Kelson took one, too. Two hours later,
raising his hat, he accosted her as she stood tapping the pavement of
Battery Street with a daintily shod foot, waiting to cross. "Mrs.
Belton, I think," he said. The lady eyed him coldly. "Well!" she said, "what do you want? Who are you?" "My name can scarcely matter to you," Kelson responded, "though my
business may. I have been engaged to watch you, and am fully posted as
to your meetings and correspondence with the Rev. J.T. Calthorpe." "I don't understand you," the lady said, her cheeks flaming. "You have
made a mistake--a very serious mistake for you." For a moment Kelson's heart failed. He was still a clerk, with all the
humility of an office stool and shining trousers' seat thick on him,
whilst she was a _grande dame_ accustomed to the bows and scrapes of
employers as well as employed. Several people passed by and stared at him--as he thought--suspiciously,
and he felt that this was the most critical time in his life, and
unless he pulled through, smartly in fact, he would be done once and
for all. If he didn't make haste, too, the woman would undoubtedly
call a policeman. It was this thought as well as--though, perhaps,
hardly as much as--the look of her that stimulated Kelson to action. He hated behaving badly to women; but was this thing, dressed in a
skirt that fitted like a glove and showed up every detail of her
figure--this thing with the paint on her cheeks, and eyebrows, and
lips--artistically done, perhaps, but done all the same--this thing
all loaded with jewellery and buttons--this thing--a woman! No! She
was not--she was only a millionaire's plaything--brainless,
heartless--a hobby that cost thousands, whilst countless men such as
he--starved. He detested--abominated such luxuries! And thus nerved he
retorted, borrowing some of her imperiousness--

"Do you deny, madam, that for the past two hours you've been sitting
on the sofa of the end room of the third floor of No. 216, Market
Street, flirting with the Rev. J.T. Calthorpe, whom you call
'Mickey-moo'; that you gave him a photo you had taken at Bell's Studio
in Clay Street, specially for him; that you gave him five greenbacks
to the value of one hundred and fifty dollars, and that you've planned
a moonlight promenade with him to-morrow, when your husband will be in
Denver?" "Don't talk so loud," the lady said in a low voice. "Walk along with
me a little and then we shan't be noticed. I see you do know a good
deal--how, I can't imagine, unless you were hidden somewhere in the
room. Who has employed you to watch me?" "That, madam, I can't say," Kelson truthfully responded. "And I can't think," the lady said, "unless it is some woman enemy. But, after all, you can't do much since you hold no proofs--your word
alone will count for nothing." "Ah, but I have strong corroborative evidence," Kelson retorted. "I
have the testimony of at least two other people who know quite as much
as I do." "Adventurers like yourself," the lady sneered. "My husband would
neither believe you nor your friends." "He would believe your letters, any way," said Kelson. "My letters!" the lady laughed, "You've no letters of mine." "No, but I know where the correspondence that has passed between you
and the Rev. J.T. Calthorpe is to be found.