Zebatinsky said, “What if you don’t find a better future?”

“That is the risk you will have to take. You will be no worse off than now, my friend.”

Zebatinsky stared at the little man uneasily, “I don’t believe any of this. I’d sooner believe numerology.”

The numerologist sighed. “I thought a person like yourself would feel more comfortable with the truth. I want to help you and there is much yet for you to do. If you believed me a numerologist, you would not follow through. I thought if I told you the truth you would let me help you.”

Zebatinsky said, “If you can see the future—”

“Why am I not the richest man on earth? Is that it? But I am rich—in all I want. You want recognition and I want to be left alone. I do my work. No one bothers me. That makes me a billionaire. I need a little real money and this I get from people such as yourself. Helping people is nice and perhaps a psychiatrist would say it gives me a feeling of power and feeds my ego. Now—do you want me to help you?”

“How much did you say?”

“Fifty dollars. I will need a great deal of biographical information from you but I have prepared a form to guide you. It’s a little long, I’m afraid. Still, if you can get it in the mail by the end of the week, I will have an answer for you by the—” (he put out his lower lip and frowned in mental calculation) “the twentieth of next month.”

“Five weeks? So long?”

“I have other work, my friend, and other clients. If I were a fake, I could do it much more quickly. It is agreed then?”