“Wilfred—­is it Wilfred?” he asked.

Laughing Eyes was far too clever a spirit to take immediately an opening so obvious.

“You wait a minny!” she said.  “Laughing Eyes don’t see just right now.  Will—­Will—­he come, he go.  Oh—­oh—­I see a ring—­maybe it’s on a finger, maybe it ain’t—­Laughing Eyes kind of a fool this morning—­Laughing Eyes has got lots to do for a ’itty girl—­” Rosalie had essayed another glance as she spoke of the ring.  It brought no visible change of expression; and from the success of her shot with Wilfred she knew that this, in spite of first impressions, was a sitter whose expression betrayed him.  “Then it’s business troubles,” she thought, “unless he’s a psychic researcher.  And if he was, he wouldn’t be so easy with his face.”

So Laughing Eyes burbled again, and then burst out: 

“I see a atmosphere of trouble!” The young man’s countenance dropped, whereupon Laughing Eyes fell to chattering foolishly before she went on:  “Piles of bright ’itty buttons—­money—­” And then something which had been gently titillating Rosalie’s sense of smell made a sudden connection with her memory, Iodoform—­the faintest suggestion.  She linked this perception with his appearance of having been freshly tubbed, his immaculate finger nails, shining as though fresh from the manicure, his perfectly kept teeth and—­yes—­the pressure of a finger on her pulse.  Upon this perception, Laughing Eyes spoke sharply: 

“Wilfred says your sick folks don’t always pay like they ought.  He says when they’re in danger they can’t do too much for the doctor, but when they’re well, he’s—­he—­he—­Wilfred is funny—­a old sawbones!”

“Ask fa—­ask him about the patient,” faltered Rosalie’s sitter.

“Wilfred says, ‘My son, it’s comin’ out all right if you follow your own impulses,’” responded Laughing Eyes.  “You do the way the influences guide you.  They ’re guiding you, not them other doctors that you’re askin’ advice from.”  Laughing Eyes shifted to babbling of the bright spirit plane beyond, and all that the patient was missing by delay in translation, while Rosalie took another glance of observation, and thought rapidly.  Was this patient a medical or surgical case?  Two chances out of three, surgical; it would take remorse and apprehension over a mistake with the scalpel to drive a medical man medium-hunting.  Her glance at his hands confirmed her determination to venture.  They were large and heavy, yet fine, the hands of a craftsman, a forger, a surgeon, anyone who does small and exact work.  Rosalie had been in a hospital in her day, and she had studied doctors, as she studied the rest of humanity, with an eye always to future uses.  Having a pair of hands like that, a doctor must inevitably choose surgery.

“Trust your papa!” babbled the Control.  “Laughing Eyes trusted her papa—­ugh!—­he big Chief.  He here now!  Your papa knows my papa!  Your papa says you didn’t cut too deep!”