Let us figure these things out in a social way, taking our time in discussing matters. Then, and not until then, will I teach you the deportment of the regular stage operator.

I know a Professor who is one of the most successful operators who. a few years ago, was playing mere villages and school houses up in Wisconsin. An editor of a country weekly got hold of him. sold out his plant, advertised in the right way and the whole company have been able to enjoy what comfort they desired. They made money, lots of money, and that is what the stage operator wants: he isn't in business for the pleasure of seeing his name in print!

The expenses of a hypnotist in his traveling are about as follows, assuming, of course, that he wants to do the thing as it should be done:

An advance man is necessary if actual success is desired. One can be obtained who will bill the entire season in two months, making contracts for stands from one night to a week. He will want about twenty dollars a week and expenses for that period; that will mean about fifty dollars a week for a period of two months, or, in other words, he will cost you about $450. The paper he will put out will be worth about $150. A subject will cost you - for a period of six months - $250 and expenses. That is, unless you get a boy who is anxious to travel. That will pay his expenses right there for the season, with the exception of traveling expenses. Your traveling and hotel expenses will be about $850 for the season of six months; that includes the expenses of your subject. Licenses and all other expenses will be about S200. This is putting it in a general way. The total expense will be approximately. $2,000. During that time you will appear before at least 100 audiences. You will have to take in an average of $2I a performance to make money. That will mean, at popular prices. 15, 25 and 35 cents, an average of 84 people. Now. in reality, you should have 250 people at a performance. But we will drop the average as low as 150. If you have that many, you will clear, during the season of six months. $1,400. But you should easily clear between $3,000 and $4,000. You will work for that from October to March, inclusive, and the remaining six months are yours to rest or to engage in some other branch of hypnotism.

However, if you engage a good manager, and have him bill you first and then come back and go over the route with you, zealously guarding your interests, you will clear even more and you will be free from the routine care of your work.

In the smaller towns where you feel that you will not have a large audience, you will find that it has cost less to bill it than the larger town. When you strike a city of thirty thousand, you will have to put up about an even hundred dollars for expenses and you will be lucky to get off with that. If you are disappointed with your audience you will be losing a fair-sized purse. But, if you know that ten dollars will clear you in a town, and you take out twenty, you are ahead, and much more so in proportion than you would be in a larger town.

I present these merely to let the student know about what to expect. These figures can vary either way. There are some hypnotists who figure on spending about seven or eight thousand dollars on the road during a season and taking in about twelve thousand. That takes a great deal of capital to start, and the man who has this will figure some time before he places that much money in a road venture. On the other hand, there is the hypnotist who has a good partner with a business understanding and capital equal to his own. He has a subject to carry with him to whom he pays nothing to speak of. He has good clothes and so does his manager. They play towns of from eight hundred to three thousand. From ten to fifteen dollars will cover their expenses. They will make about that much clear in each town.

Or, again, if the Professor prefers to start out in a modest manner, he can increase his business, providing he goes about it in a businesslike way. There are certain avenues that will always prey upon your purse; there are others that will try to but need not if you watch yourself.

But allow me to return to the narrative form as it is time to take you, reader, into the actual workings of the Professor's life on the country route.

Yes, I am going to try the good old country again. There are four weeks ahead of me before I really have to get uneasy; nevertheless, I am going to make preparations now. I am going to wait until the 15th of October this season - over two and one-half months hence - before I make my first stand. Today I have received a letter from Harris, saying that he will play the season with me on an even division of the receipts. He has the money to put into the business and I know he is reliable. True, there are many men as good as Harris when it comes to closing a deal, but I know that when Harris starts out this fall to bill the show he will do it right because it is as much to his interest as it is to my own to do so.

And another thing I might say for Harris; he is a little above the average good advance man because he is temperate and has enough pride to be one of the proprietors. He is not content with so much for the season's work. He wants something that will be good for the next season and many more beyond that. He is willing to place five hundred dollars in the treasury with five hundred of my own money and take chances on coming out with two thousand apiece, or a net gain of fifteen hundred dollars each.

Harris writes me that he will go down to Toledo to get a casket. To the ordinary mortal that would be a sad blow, but to me it is not. That casket is for Albert. He must do the long sleep and Harry will come in as an aid when Albert has had his share. I do not care to mention the name of the Toledo firm but their plate will appear on the casket. It is, withal, a unique way of advertising wares, but it is not half bad at that. I can remember when I was out with Harris four years ago. He got that casket - something that would have cost a hundred and fifty at retail - and the right to keep it in repair for nothing; merely for the display. You don't know how a casket firm would jump at a chance like that. But we were playing vaudeville then. Now we have a better opportunity. There was a firm in Milwaukee that would have done the same by us, but I find old friends are the best stand-bys.