t really isn't necessary. Tex will either
be right all the time or it won't matter."

But before I could call the top card, the office door opened
behind us. I looked around, expecting Pheola. Instead it was
Milly with the down, down hose. Only this time she was decently
dressed in a dark two-piece suit and wore make-up. She certainly
was no more talkative than before, nor did Wally introduce her.
Shari was perfectly equal to the occasion and looked through
Milly with composure. This takes about three generations of
overbreeding.

"Try it," Wally insisted. "What's on top?"

I hit it. Then I missed it. Then I hit three in a row. It wasn't
fast work, because Wally hid the cards under his desk after each
guess, shuffled the two cards around and then laid them before me
again. This went on for about twenty minutes. At that point Shari
spoke.

"That makes exactly three hundred tries," she said, looking at
the counter in her hand. "Have you been keeping score, Mr. Bupp?"

"I thought _you_ were."

"So I was," she snapped, throwing up her tiaraed head. He sure
brought out the worst in people. "Tex has been right exactly one
hundred and fifty times. He's never been more than five tries to
the good in the whole series."

"Interesting," Wally said.

I took my first decent breath in the day. "This ought to let me
off the hook," I said to him. "Are you convinced?"

He shrugged. "How about it, Milly?" he asked.

"A random sample," she said. "He doesn't want to score. He didn't
try."

Shari was ready for that one. She turned and spoke to Milly: "You
have ways of knowing what Tex was thinking?" she asked sweetly.

"Yes."

"Name any three!" Shari lashed at her furiously. The solid woman
wasn't the least bit bowled over.

"Read his mind," she said matter-of-factly. "Just like I can tell
that you're getting ready to screech 'Charlatan!' at me, and like
you think I got a cast-iron girdle and homely shoes. Well,
they're comfortable, dearie, which is more than you can say for
those high-heeled slippers of yours. That left little toe of
yours is killing you, dearie!"

Shari's lips moved, but her mouth was as empty of sound as her
face was of blood. Milly had hit the bull's-eye.

"Everybody relax a moment," Wally said. "Tell me, Dr. King,
what's your attitude toward PC?"

"I don't have any!" she snapped. "It's a phenomenon. I have as
much attitude toward it as I do toward osmosis or toward
peristalsis. None."

"Woul