as it spun in a sparkling arc. It fell heads. He tossed it again. It fell heads. As long as anyone at the table still doubted—nineteen times, I think—he tossed the coin and it fell heads.

The old man rolled the dice. Dori watched them as they rolled. They fell seven. He rolled them again. They fell seven. This time I counted. Twenty-two times he rolled the dice, and twenty-two times they fell seven. Then someone called for an eight, and they fell eight.

The act ended on a farcical note, with water jumping from a glass to splash the shirt front of Gerss, the club president. Gerss, whose shirt was well stuffed, didn't appear to appreciate it much, but the others roared. Then Dori and her father retired—and I was up from the table, nearly upsetting my chair, to follow them.

Most of the other members of the Astronaut Club undoubtedly thought the act was a clever piece of legerdemain. But I knew the power Dori possessed, for I had read much about it and had yearned for it myself.

Obviously, Dori had strong psychokinetic ability. If you are not familiar with that, Mr. Peache, it is the ability to manipulate physical things by means of the mind alone. It is still a subject for investigation, but it was a quality that Dori possessed beyond any doubt.

I caught up with them in the next room, waiting; for Greene, our club secretary, was a cautious man and never paid entertainers in advance. When Dori's father realized I was not the man bringing his money to him, he sat down disconsolately in a straight-backed chair and let me talk to Dori without interruption. Probably he had been through this before.

I introduced myself to Dori and, since her impatient expression didn't encourage idle chatter, started right in with:

"You and your father are picking up pennies, when you could be rich. Now—"

"If you were going to offer to be our manager, you're wasting your breath. My father has had such offers before, and we want no manager. He's satisfied with things as they are."

That's what I had planned, although being their "manager" would have been only a blind for what I had in mind. I changed my tack.

"As a matter of fact, I was interested in you, Miss Dori. I was attracted to you the moment I saw you. I wonder if you'd go out to dinner with me tonight?"

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