"Yes, dearie; but it won't bite. It's muzzled with my diamond
horseshoe."

"Nothing doing, Kit. Put it under your pillow."

"You better watch out. There's a thirteenth letter in the alphabet; you
might accidentally use it some day. You're going to have a sweet time
to-night, you are!"

"Why?"

"The boys have engaged De Butera to come up to the rooms."

"You mean the fortune teller over at the Stag Hotel?"

"She's not a fortune teller, you poor nervous wreck. She's the
highest-priced spiritualist in the world. Moving tables--spooks--woof!"

"Faugh!" said Hester, rising from her couch and feeling with her little
bare feet for the daintiest of pink-silk mules. "I could make tables
move, too, at forty dollars an hour. Where's my attendant? I want an
alcohol rub."

They did hold séance that night in a fine spirit of lark, huddled
together in the _de-luxe_ sitting room of one of their suites, and
little half-hysterical shrieks and much promiscuous ribaldry under cover
of darkness.

Madame de Butera was of a distinctly fat and earthy blondness, with a