The Argosy, Vol. 81, No. 4 — page 153: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE RING OF RAAJ. these East Indian yogis are really able to work such miracles—”’ : The doctor, looking quickly from Mr. Haviland’s face to that of the gentleman with whom he had previously been in con- sultation, smiled again. “Dempster,” said he, “let me introduce you to Mr. Satterlee—Mr. Elmer C. Sat- terlee, of Larchmont, up the Sound,” he added explicitly, as, the last-named person rising, he and the impatient visitor shook hands. “Sit down, Dempster,” the physician went on. “You haven’t interrupted us. Mr. Satterlee has just finished telling me a most interesting story.” Still standing, Dr. Pruell nodded both callers toward chairs, and waited until they were seated—somewhat. reluctantly on Charles Dempster’s part, his unrelieved - perturbation still plainly showing on his face. “And now,” their host resumed, ‘‘I am going to ask Mr. Satterlee, as a favor, if he will repeat briefly what he has told me. You will oblige me, Satterlee? Thank you. Now, Dempster, pay heed to this. I found it most entertaining, indeed. And I’m quite sure you will. If you will begin, sir?” Charles Dempster half rose. “But really, I’m in such a state of mind—”’ The doctor had seated himself. “Be quiet, my boy,” he ordered blandly, “and listen.” Satterlee crossed one leg over the other, He shrugged, patently at a loss just how to tell a story to one who had already heard it and another who was a stranger. “Why, it’s like this,” he said. “TI live up in Larchmont, as the doctor, here, has just said. In the same house with my uncle—that’s Darius Broxton, you know, the retired sugar-refiner. I’m sort of a secretary to him. Look after any little business he may still have to transact, and so on. Though I don’t do it for hire, you understand. I’ve got a little means of my own. It—it happens to be ten thousand dollars in bank, left me by my mother, since that’s got to do with the rest. “Well, my uncle has a ward. A nice enough sort of girl. The plain-but-good type, if you know what I mean. She lives with us there. We hit it off together, well enough; but just as good friends, nothing more. As it happens, I—er, I’m greatly infatuated with another girl. 719 “But my uncle’s being so fond of Janet —that’s the homely one—I got to thinking: Did he expect me to marry his ward some day? And if I didn’t, where would his money go after he died? Would any of it come to me, as his only flesh-and-blood kin? Or would I be disowned through one of those story-book provisos, concern- ing the proper marriage for me to make? Naturally, I was anxious to know where I stood before I became engaged to the girl of my choice. “Well, now that gets me to the point where I can tell about the Hindoos. The dark-skinned hokus-pokus chaps that are all the time buzzing round my uncle. As you may have read, he’s a crank on the subject of crystal-gazing, and all that sort of stuff. The house up there in Larchmont is just about overrun with a tribe of Swamis, yogis, and so forth, all the time. “One day last week I stopped one of these chaps in the hall. I asked him—the Great Naigai, this was, and the king-pin of the lot that has Uncle Darius on the string —if he could really peep into the future, or through brick walls, and all such rot, when he wanted to. “The faker looked at me hard. Then he wanted to know why I asked. And so I told him. That I’d like to know what was in my uncle’s will, without waiting. It might mean a good-sized fortune to me to know-—not to make the mistake of mar- rying the wrong girl and getting cut off. If this chap, or his tribe, could tell me. what that will said regarding that one par- ticular point I would be willing to pay well for it. ‘“T remember that the fellow kept watch- ing me sharply. Being wise, he had found out through my uncle before this how much I was worth. He knew I was skeptical of him, and of his crowd, and of their tricks. Still, you never could tell. Some day I might be taken in by them for something some way. And now, sure enough, here I was ready to bite at last. ‘“‘An even thousand, he told me, was his price to tell me what I wanted to know. That was pretty steep; but I was game. If he could really do the thing, I’d pay up and gladly. “Only—no buying in the dark. First he’d have to show me. Prove whether he had supernatural ability—make a test, so to speak. This Naigai said he could do it. But it mustn’t be up there. My uncle ANUELOOO) (C eS CO (C@)