MRS.

EASY HAS HER FORTUNE TOLD

Mrs. Easy entering her apartment to find a friend waiting for her.
Oh, my dear Mary, I'm so sorry, I'm just exhausted. Martha, put the chain back on the door, pleaseI do hope I
haven't kept you waiting longabout twenty minutes? Oh, what a shame!
But I've just had such an exciting experience! I'm just done out! I must tell you all about it. But just wait a minute till I
ring and tell Martha to make a cocktail. You'll have one, won't you? Martha, make two cocktailsno, make fouror
no (calling louder as Martha has left)Marthamake six. My dear Mary, I need it. I'm just all done in.
I've just come from having my fortune told, at least I don't mean that, I mean having my horoscope read. You must
excuse my being so breathless, I'm not really breathless, it's just the excitement. My dear Mary, I must say it, I can't
keep it to myselfI'm going to be kidnapped! Yes, kidnapped, now, at any minute, right here! Martha, is the chain on
the door? Don't open it for anyone....
Ah! thank goodness for that cocktailexcuse me if I drink it right off (noise of drinking)ah! that's better: it makes
one feel calmer, doesn't it? I think I'll take anotheryes, my dear (more resignedly), I'm expecting to be kidnapped at
any moment.
Did Mrs. Brown say that was my fortune? Oh, goodness, no! I don't mean I went to old Mrs. Brown, or anybody of
that classshe's all right, of course, Mrs. Brown, I've often been to her and she's a dear old soul. I must have gone to
her nearly once a week last winter. But she never says anything, and even what she says is so ordinary, don't you
know.
She prophesied that Henry would live to ninety. That's all right. I hope he does, I'm sure, and Henry's as good as
husbands go anyway. But ninety! And after all that's not the kind of thing you pay to hear. Of course, she did prophesy
that we'd go to Bermuda at Easter. But that had been in the paper anyway....
But this fortune-teller (sinking her voice to mystery), is utterly different. He's not just a fortune-teller. He's a Yogi
soothsayerit's quite different, he's Mr. Yahi-Bahi, and he's a Parsee, you know what that isit means a sort of
Hindu, only higher up. You know how all the Hindus are divided into castes; if you're in the lowest caste, you have to
live on garbage and you mustn't speak to anyone, and then there are a lot of in-between castes who have to be
vegetarians and worship cows. You see, I know all about India because Henry and I were on a round-the-world-cruise
and we had a whole day in Bombay, and there was a Chinese gentleman on board with us, a Mr. O-Hoo, and he was
all right, he'd been at Harvard for four months and he told us all about the Hindu religion and why it is so far ahead of
Christianity.
So that's how I know about castes and Mr. Yahi-Bahi's caste is at the top of all. They don't eat. They don't speakthey
just contemplate. Oh, thank you, Martha, put them down here beside the others. Now that's not too strong, is it?
(drinks). Oh! Goodness! I needed that! Well, I was saying, would you believe it, that Mr. Yahi-Bahi, before he came
here, sat on the top of a post for a monthwith just a loin cloth onand just meditated. Think of the flies!
So then he came here (I don't just know how long ago), and began casting horoscopesthat's what it's calledand
Mary! such wonderful results! Do you know that he told Mrs. Faith that something dark was hanging over herand
that very month her chauffeur left her; and he told Mrs. Gull that there was a fate over her youngest son, the one at
college: and there was. He was sent home for drinking at the end of the term.
Oh, he's just wonderful. And my dear! No money! He scorns it! That's the first thing you learn about Yahi-Bahi. You
can offer it if you like just as a courtesy, but he just quietly refuses. Money, to him, is just dirt. You see his expenses
are nothing; contemplation doesn't cost anything.
So it's very hard to get an interview. Why, my dear, I had to wait for ever so long. You see, I couldn't have my fortune
toldonly it is not really called that, it's receiving a revelationI couldn't receive a revelation till I was fit to receive
itthat's part of the method.
So I had to qualify by contemplation: I had to send in ten dollars (not to Mr. Yahi-Bahi, of course; to his assistant) and
then contemplate for a week. At first it was awfully hard, I don't mean the ten dollars, that was easy, but to
contemplate. You see, you have to think of nothing. And at first I'd keep thinking of shopping I'd had to do and
whether Martha had given Ouiji his bath and about telephoning to Henry to be sure to cash a chequeand about what
to wear that afternoonwell, you know, all the regular round of work that makes up one's day. But I managed to learn
fairly well, and at the end of the week, I got a thought messagethink of it! a thought message (it was sent by post) to
tell me to send ten dollars again and keep on contemplating. So I knew I had succeeded....

Well, after contemplating like that for four weeks they let me become a neophytethat means a person just starting to
be a Yogionly it takes years. And then I went to see Mr. Yahi-Bahi himself for the first timesuch a strange place,
at least not the outsideit was just a little apartment on a side street. But I mean, once you got in, all the stairway
going up, and the ante-room, where you waited, were hung with curtains with figures of snakes and Indian gods,
perfectly weird! And the man who met menot Mr. Yahi-Bahi himself, of course, but his assistant, the strangest little
being. His name is Mr. Ram Spudd, a little round man, a Bengalee, I think. He put his arms across the stomach and
bowed ever so low and said, 'Isis guard you!'my dear! it was most impressive.
I asked if I could see Mr. Yahi-Bahi, but Mr. Ram Spudd shook his head and said no, Mr. Yahi was in meditation, and
mustn't be disturbed. I laid down ten dollars on a little side tablejust unobtrusively so as not to insult him. But Mr.
Spudd just waved the idea aside with his hand, with such a kindly smile and a shrug of the shoulders, and explained
that money didn't enter into Mr. Yahi's life. Then he waved his hand again, and would you believe it, the ten dollars
had gone! My dear! he had de-astralized it! not a doubt of it. I saw it myself. One minute it was there! and next gone!
So I came like that three more times, I mean three days runningand each time Mr. Spudd received me with the same
gentle way and shook his head. Mr. Yahi was meditating still.... I laid ten dollars on the table and each time it was deastralized!
Then I got afraid that it was bad taste and might hurt his feelings to force him to de-astralize ten dollars every dayso
next day I didn't put any money downand perhaps the shockyou see it's all so subtle, my dearthe shock woke
Mr. Yahi out of his meditationI heard him call to Mr. Spudd in Hindu, I suppose, and Mr. Spudd said Mr. Yahi
would see me.
So Mr. Yahi-Bahi came out from behind the curtainssuch a strange-looking man, so tall and yet he wasn't really tall,
I suppose it was his long gown, all figured over with sacred snakes and lizardsand his eyesmy dear! so deep
like pools of molasses! and he took my hand flat between his and he said, 'Osiris keep you!'
Then he made me sit down in a chair and he looked into my eyes and held my hand a long while and then he said
'You have a soul!' and then he looked at me again and said'Dark Things are impending over you,' and I said,
'What are they?' But he just shook his head and in a minute he was gone! I had just half closed my eyes and he
vanished! Perhaps he went behind the curtain.
Well, would you believe it, my dear(bell rings)see who it is at the telephone, Martha, and say I can't come
would you believe it, I went time after timewhat do you say, Martha? The Evening Times want to speak to mesay
I'm outI went, as I say, time after time, and Mr. Yahi said he would get my horoscope ready to read but he never got
it till to-dayand, oh, goodness, I'm all shaken up with it; it's so dark, it's terrible. But I must tell you first. Each time
I went to Mr. Yahi, Mr. Spudd said I'd have to wait a week or two for my horoscope but that if I liked (he was awfully
nice about it), he would call up some spirits and I could talk to them.
It was wonderful. He called up the spirit of Napoleon, and I talked to Napoleon, behind a curtain, just as easily as I'm
talking to you. I asked him if he had been lonely at St. Helena and he said, 'Yes.' And I asked him whether it was the
battle of Trafalgar that did most to defeat him and he said, yes, he hadn't enough cavalry.
And I talked with the spirit of Benjamin Franklin but he seemed a little dull; perhaps his brain got damaged after he
was dead, but anyway he said that it was all bright and beautiful where he was. But a funny thing about the spirits, my
dear, some of themthey asked such queer questions. Napoleon asked me if I had an extra key of my apartment, and I
said I had and he said he might need it and please leave it with Mr. Yahi. So I did, but I don't want Napoleon coming
over and able to get in at night. I said to Mr. Yahi I'd have an extra lock put onand just imagine, my dear, the spirit
of Joan of Arc (next sance) warned me not to. She said it was all right: and of course if she thought so, it was all right
for me. But if Mr. Yahi gives the key to Napoleon I hope he lets me know.
Well, at last I managed to get a revelation from Mr. Yahi. That was two days ago. First he talked about Henry. He
wouldn't say what is going to happen to him. But it's something terrible. He said it hangs over him ready to fall and he
said the sand is low in his glass. He says Henry must leave town at once, and take nothing with him of any value,
leave all his valuables here in the apartment. Osiris will look after them. I called Henry up on the telephone as soon as
ever I got home: he was at the golf club and I said, 'Henry, Mr. Yahi, the Parsee magician, says there's something
hanging over you,' and he said, 'Is that so? Say! I made the fourth hole under par': and I said, 'Mr. Yahi says the sand is
low in your glass,' and Henry said, 'I fell down badly in the waterhole,' and I said, 'Henry, you've got to get under the
protection of Osiris,' and he said, 'What's wrong with the police?' You know that mocking way Henry has.
But when he came home, I told him all about it and this time he listened, especially about Napoleon having our key. I
think he was jealous. But I said, 'Henry, Napoleon is only a spirit, and anyway Napoleon was not that sort of man.'

Well, that was yesterday and I went round again to-day and Mr. Yahi was therenot meditatingand he told me my
horoscope. He said I'm going to lose HenryI'd guessed that already, and then he saidI'm just shuddering at the
thought of itMartha, is that door locked, see that it ishe said that I'm in hourly danger of being kidnapped!
Yes, kidnapped! and held for ransom! Think of itI asked him for how much and he said he would try to find out and
looked into a crystal ball, all dark and shininglooked into it ever so fixedly and said the figures were there but were
hard to read and asked how much would I pay, and I said it would depend on Henry and Mr. Yahi shook his head and
said the figures looked like a hundred thousand to him. I said I was glad it wasn't more; and he looked again and said
he believed it was a hundred and fifty thousand....
I asked Mr. Yahi what I would do, and he said the first thing was to put myself under the protection of Isis and Osiris.
He said to pack up everything I had of value and leave it here, with the secret mark of Osirishe showed me how to
make itto guard it. He said, put the mark on anything valuable, like jewels, but not on other things and Osiris would
look after them, and if I decided for a ransom to leave it, marked plainly RANSOM. Then he said for me to leave town
instantly and take nothing with me. You see he explained that protection in the Yogi doctrine is only for the weak
and I must leave behind even all my money, except just enough for a few daysin fact he said to take any cash in my
cash account, mark it Osiris and leave it here. He said Osiris would ...
Is that some one at the door?don't take the chain off it, graciousdon't let any one in, Marthaa young man from
the Evening Times, you say, about the 'sensational arrest'? I don't know about the 'sensational arrestshut him out,
Martha. But my goodness, 'sensational arrest,' does that mean that the kidnappers are caught already? Isn't Osiris
wonderfuljust think of divining what they were going to do before they did it! Well, thank goodness...
There's the telephone again, Martha.