ame, whose very
wrinkles date back into the eighteenth century. But of that
hereafter.

He was determined to have her tell his "love, courtship, or
marriage, absent friends, or sickness," and to insist that she
should "prescribe medicines for property lost or stolen,"
according to the exact wording of the advertisement.

The doughty "Individual" trembled somewhat, with an undefined
sensation of awe, as though some fearful ordeal was before him--to
use his own elegant and forcible language, he felt as though he
was going to encounter an earthquake with volcano trimmings.

"It is the fluttering of new-born love in your manly bosom,"
remarked his companion.

"Well," was the reply, "if a baby love kicks so very like a horse
of vicious propensities, a full-grown Cupid would be so
unmanageable as to defy the very Rarey and all his works."

Without any noteworthy adventure they kept on their way to the
First Avenue, and in due time stood, awe-struck, before the
mansion of the enchantress.

After the first impression had worn off, the scene was somewhat
stripped of its mysteriousness, and assumed an aspect commonplace,
not to say seedy. As soon as the sense of bewilderment with which
they at first gazed upon the domicile of the mysterious damsel so
favored of the fates, had passed away, they found themselves in a
condition to make the observations of the place and its
surroundings that are detailed below.

The house, a three-story brick, seemed to have that architectural
disease which is a perpetual epidemic among the tenant-houses of
the city, and which makes them look as if they had all been
dipped in a strong solution of something that had taken the skin
off. The paint was blistered and peeling off in flakes; the
blinds were hanging cornerwise by solitary hinges; the shingles
were starting from their places with a strange air of disquietude,
as if some mighty hand had stroked them the wrong way; the
door-steps were shaky and crazy in the knees; the door itself had
a curious air of debility and emaciation, and the bell-knob was
too weak to return to its place after it had feebly done its
brazen duty. There was no door-plate, but on a battered tin sign
was blazoned, in fat letters, the mystic word "Widger." The Cash
Customer rang the bell, not once merely, or twice, but continuously,
in pursuance of a dogma which he laid down as follows:

"It is a mistake to ever stop ringing till somebody comes. The
feebler you r