patent medicine business, in the way of inventing new
remedies; how invaluable would they be to an editor; in fact, how
particularly useful in almost any kind of business.

But his great plan was to train a corps of light-footed and
gentle ghosts to carry news; they would of course beat locomotives,
carrier pigeons, and electric telegraphs out of sight; seas,
mountains, and such trifling obstacles would be no hindrance to
them, and the Associated Press, to say nothing of the Board of
Brokers, would pay handsomely for their services. Of course a
ghost with any pretensions to speed would bring us detailed news
from London in half-an-hour or so, without putting himself out of
breath in the least, thus beating the telegraph by a length. And
so Johannes, fully determined on this promising scheme, began to
cast about him for a medium who was acquainted in the spirit
sphere, to introduce him to some of the eligible ghosts.

He knew that most of the clairvoyant women are "mediums," and
thought very naturally that women who already earned their living
by clairvoyance, would be the very ones to enter heart and soul
with him into his spiritualistic scheme.

Yes, he would marry a medium, and if she was a professional
clairvoyant, so much the better, his bow would have another
string.

In his search for a witch-wife he would not have been justified
in interfering at all with the clairvoyants had it not been for
the fact that they mix a little witchcraft with their regular
business. Their ostensible trade is to diagnose and prescribe for
different varieties of internal disease, and so this particular
branch of humbug would not have come within the scope of the
voyager's investigations, were it not that several of these
practitioners advertise to "tell the past, present, and future,
describe the future husband or wife, mark out correctly the exact
course of future life, give unerring advice about business,
absent friends, etc."

All this had too strong a savor of witchcraft to be ignored, and
accordingly Johannes set forth on his journey to visit another of
these mysteriously clear-sighted persons, keeping in view all the
time the probabilities of her being an A 1 spiritual medium, and
the very person whose aid would be invaluable in his new
journalistic enterprise.

Mrs. Seymour, of No. 110 Spring Street, was the person towards
whose house the Cash Customer bent his steps, after reading the
subjoined advertisement of her po