“He’s forty-two too. That looks like a bad age.”

“Who said so, that Mrs. Pike? I bet she’s forty-two,” said Mrs. Fletcher.

“Naw,” said Leota, “Mrs. Pike’s thirty-three, born in January, an Aquarian. He could move his head—like this. A course his head and mind ain’t a joint, so to speak, and I guess his stomach ain’t, either—not yet, anyways. But see—his food, he eats it, and it goes down, see, and then he digests it”—Leota rose on her toes for an instant—“and it goes out to his joints and before you can say ‘Jack Robinson,’ it’s stone—pure stone. He’s turning to stone. How’d you like to be married to a guy like that? All he can do, he can move his head just a quarter of an inch. A course he looks just terrible.”

“I should think he would,” said Mrs. Fletcher frostily. “Mr. Fletcher takes bending exercises every night of the world. I make him.”

“All Fred does is lay around the house like a rug. I wouldn’t be surprised if he woke up some day and couldn’t move. The petrified man just sat there moving his quarter of an inch though,” said Leota reminiscently.

“Did Mrs. Pike like the petrified man?” asked Mrs. Fletcher.

“Not as much as she did the others,” said Leota deprecatingly. “And then she likes a man to be a good dresser, and all that.”

“Is Mr. Pike a good dresser?” asked Mrs. Fletcher sceptically.

“Oh, well, yeah,” said Leota, “but he’s twelve or fourteen years older’n her. She ast Lady Evangeline about him.”

“Who’s Lady Evangeline?” asked Mrs. Fletcher.

“Well, it’s this mind reader they got in the freak show,” said Leota. “Was real good. Lady Evangeline is her name, and if I had another dollar I wouldn’t do a thing but have my other palm read. She had what Mrs. Pike said was the ‘sixth mind’ but she had the worst manicure I ever saw on a living person.”

“What did she tell Mrs. Pike?” asked Mrs. Fletcher.

“She told her Mr. Pike was as true to her as he could be and besides, would come into some money.”

“Humph!” said Mrs. Fletcher. “What does he do?”