Dearest Page 5

Barnwell Powell nodded primly. "I don't blame you, in the least,Colonel," he said. "I think you have been abominably treated, and yourattitude is most generous." He was about to say something else, when thedoorbell tinkled and Sergeant Williamson went out into the hall. "Oh,dear; I suppose that's the police, now," the lawyer said. He grimacedlike a small boy in a dentist's chair.

  Colonel Hampton felt Dearest leave him for a moment. Then she was back.

  "The ambulance." Then he caught a sparkle of mischief in her mood."Let's have some fun, Popsy! The doctor is a young man, with brown hairand a mustache, horn-rimmed glasses, a blue tie and a tan-leather bag.One of the ambulance men has red hair, and the other has amercurochrome-stain on his left sleeve. Tell them your spirit-guide toldyou."

  The old soldier's tobacco-yellowed mustache twitched with amusement.

  "No, gentlemen, it is the ambulance," he corrected. "My spirit-controlsays...." He relayed Dearest's descriptions to them.

  T. Barnwell Powell blinked. A speculative look came into thepsychiatrist's eyes; he was probably wishing the commitment paper hadn'tbeen destroyed.

  Then the doctor came bustling in, brown-mustached, blue-tied,spectacled, carrying a tan bag, and behind him followed the twoambulance men, one with a thatch of flaming red hair and the other witha stain of mercurochrome on his jacket-sleeve.

  For an instant, the lawyer and the psychiatrist gaped at them. Then T.Barnwell Powell put one hand to his mouth and made a small gibberingsound, and Doctor Vehrner gave a faint squawk, and then both mengrabbed, simultaneously, for the whiskey bottle.

  The laughter of Dearest tinkled inaudibly through the rumbling mirth ofColonel Hampton.

  The End

  TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS CORRECTED

  In the text: "... a man in my position would dislike the label ofspirit-medium;" the word "meduim" was corrected to "medium."