elt hat that shed water like a duck. He thrust his arms up to
his elbows into the capacious pockets of his coat, drew his head
down into the turned-up collar of that said garment, like a
boy-bothered mud-turtle, and marched on.

With bowed head, set teeth, and sturdy step, the cash customer
tramped along, astonishing the few pedestrians in the street by
the energy and emphasis of his remarks in cases of collision, and
attracting people to the windows to look at him as he splashed
his way up the street. He minded them no more than he did the
gentleman in the moon, but drove forward at his best speed, now
breaking his shins over a dry-goods box, then knocking his head
against a lamp-post; now getting a great punch in the stomach
from an unexpected umbrella, then involuntarily gauging the depth
of some unseen puddle, and then getting out of soundings
altogether in a muddy inland sea; now swept almost off his feet
by a sudden torrent of sufficient power to run a saw-mill, and
only recovering himself to find that he was wrecked on the
curbstone of some side street that he didn't want to go to. At
length, after a host of mishaps, including some interesting but
unpleasant submarine explorations in an unusually large mud-hole
into which he fell full-length, he arrived, soaked and savage, at
the house of Madame Prewster.

This elderly and interesting lady has long been an oily pilgrim
in this vale of tears. The oldest inhabitant cannot remember the
exact period when this truly great prophetess became a fixture in
Gotham, and began to earn her bread and butter by fortune-telling
and kindred occupations. Her unctuous countenance and pinguid
form are known to hundreds on whose visiting lists her name does
not conspicuously appear, and to whom, in the way of business,
she has made revelations which would astonish the unsuspecting
and unbelieving world. She is neither exclusive nor select in her
visitors. Whoever is willing to pay the price, in good money--a
point on which her regulations are stringent--may have the benefit
of her skill, as may be seen by her advertisement:

"CARD.--Madame PREWSTER returns thanks to her friends
and patrons, and begs to say that, after the
thousands, both in this city and Philadelphia, who have
consulted her with entire satisfaction, she feels
confident that in the questions of astrology, love, and
law matters, and books or oracles, as relied on
constantly by N