Flashback--1934: Fortune teller who almost drowned didn't foresee the danger

And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: Luke 4:23a

As reported by Chris Zdeb of the Edmonton Journal, July 31, 2015:

EDMONTON - The fortune teller never saw it coming.

Price Brown, known professionally as Professor Cosmo the fortune teller, would have drowned in the North Saskatchewan River if not for two city boys who dragged him to safety.

Brown was making his way to Queen Elizabeth Pool on the south side when he noticed a group of boys swimming in the river near the Low Level Bridge. Deciding to save himself a walk to the pool, he joined the boys, who warned him of the presence of a deep hole in the river bottom near where they were swimming.

“Brown had not been in the water long when he encountered the hole and sank beneath the river surface,” the Journal reported. Two of the boys, James Thompson and Daniel Peden, “noticing the man was in trouble, went to his assistance and after a battle with the river current, dragged him to the bank.”

The youths, both 15, left the scene without telling Brown their names, but he tracked them down through the other boys.

“The boys were modest about it all, and shy,” the story said.

“It wasn’t much,” said Thompson. “We just saw him struggling in the water and we knew there was a hole there, so we went and got him,” he explained.

“Sure, we didn’t have very far to take him,” echoed Peden.

The fortune teller, the son of a British distiller “who objects to his son toying with spirits of the less tangible sort, has been in Canada nine years,” and performed on the stages of various Canadian cities, the story said.

He claimed to have the gift of clairvoyance, which he discovered when he was 12.

So how come he didn’t know he would almost drown if he went into the river?

Brown explained that the gift of clairvoyance does not permit its holders to peer into their own futures.

The next day, he presented Thompson, a technical school student, and Peden, who attended Bennett School, with engraved gold watches for saving his life.

"The gift of clairvoyance does not permit its holders to peer into their own futures." Yeah--right. I don't know how Professor Cosmo's rescuers kept from laughing when they saw him doing an excellent impression of Oliver Hardy finding a deep hole in a puddle.