her
fortune told. Having fully comprehended the room and everything
in it, the visitor turned his attention to literary pursuits, and
thoroughly perused an odd copy of a newspaper that lay invitingly
on the table.

Visitors kept dropping in, mostly servant-appearing girls, though
there were three women attired in silk and laces, who would have
appeared respectable had their faces been hidden and their
conversation been suppressed. The lady with the comb and the boy
presently departed to some unknown region, and soon returned
with a reinforcement of chairs and stools. The number of visitors
increased, until, besides the original stranger, nine were
waiting. Among others, there came, in a friendly way, but still
with a sharp eye to business, a tall woman, attired in a red
dress and a purple bonnet, who is the keeper of a well-known
house in Sullivan street, and whose name is not strange to the
police. An unrestrained business conversation ensued between her
and the heroine of the comb, which must have been interesting to
the female listeners.

One hour and eleven minutes did the Cash Customer patiently wait
before he was admitted to the mysterious conference with the
queen of magic. At last, after the man who was at first closeted
with her had concluded his inquiries, and the stolid Irish girl
had been disposed of, the woman with the suggestive bust beckoned
the long-suffering and patient man to follow, and he fearfully
entered the sanctum.

The room of conjuration was a closet, dark and dirty, and was
lighted by one tallow candle, stuck in a Scotch ale bottle. A
number of shabby dresses, bony petticoats, and other mysterious
articles of women's gear, hung upon the walls; two weak-kneed
chairs, a tattered bit of carpet upon about two feet square of
the floor, and a little table covered with a greasy oilcloth,
composed the furniture of the mystic cell. The cabalistic
paraphernalia was limited, there being nothing but a dirty pack
of double-headed cards, a small pasteboard box with some scraps
of paper in it, and two kinds of powder in little bottles, like
hair-oil pots.

Madame Lent is a woman of medium height, about thirty-five years
of age, with light-grey eyes, false teeth, a head nearly bald,
and hair, what there is of it, of a bright red. Her manner is
hurried and confused, and she has a trick of drawing her upper
lip disagreeably up under the end of her nose, which labial
distortion she doubtless intends fo