"Sure, Pete, Bill an' no other." "No joshin' ?" she queried.
"It ain't Bill at all," the other broke in.
"How do you know ?" he demanded.

"You never laid eyes on me before." "No need to, to know you're lyin'," was the retort.
"Straight, Bill, what is it ?" the first girl asked.
"Bill'll do," he confessed.
She reached out to his arm and shook him playfully.

"I knew you was lyin', but you look good to me just the same." He captured the hand that invited, and felt on the palm familiar markings and distortions.
"When'd you chuck the cannery ?" he asked.
"How'd yeh know ?" and, "My, ain't cheh a mind-reader!" the girls chorussed.
And while he exchanged the stupidities of stupid minds with them, before his inner sight towered the book-shelves of the library, filled with the wisdom of the ages.

He smiled bitterly at the incongruity of it, and was assailed by doubts.

But between inner vision and outward pleasantry he found time to watch the theatre crowd streaming by.