dition of our being
saddled by a select lady boarder of the name of SPINK as a _tertium
quid_ to play at propriety; at which I was internally disgusted, fearing
she would play the old gooseberry with our _tete-a-tete_.

Having arrived at Olympia, we perambulated the bazaar prior to the
commencement of the shows, and here (after parting with rs. 8 for three
seats on the balcony) I did bleed more freely still, for Miss JESSIMINA
expressed a passionate longing to possess my profile, snipped out of
paper by the scissors of a Silhouette, for which I mulcted one shilling
sterling.

And, after all, although it proved the _alter ego_ and speaking likeness
of my embossed Bombay cap and golden spectacles, she found the fault
that it rendered my complexion of a too excessive murksomeness; not
reflecting (with feminine imperceptivity) that, the material being
black as a Stygian, this criticism applied to the portraitures of all
alike!

Farther on I presented her and the female gooseberry with a
pocket-handkerchief a-piece, interwoven by a mechanism with their
baptismal appellation (another rupee!).

Then we arrived at a cage containing an automatic Devil revealing the
future for a penny in the slit, and Miss JESSIMINA worked the oracle
with a coin advanced by myself, and the demon, after flashing his optics
and consulting sundry playing-cards, did presently produce a small paper
which she opened eagerly.

_Miss Jess._ (_after perusal_). Only fancy! It says I'm "to marry a dark
man, and go for a long journey, and be very rich." What ridiculous
nonsense! do you not think so, PRINCE?

_Myself_ (_with a tender sauciness_). Poet SHAKSPEARE asserts there are
more things in Heaven and earth than the Horatian philosophy. I am not a
superstitious--and yet this mechanical demon may have seen correctly
through the brick wall of Futurity. Have you not a worshipful adorer who
might be described as dark, and to whose native land it is a long
journey?

_Miss Jess._ (_with the complexion of a tomato_). It's time we took our
seats for the performance. And you are not to be a silly!

It is notorious that the English female vocabulary contains no more
caressing and flattering epithet than this of "a silly," so that I
repaired to my seat immoderately encouraged by such gracious
appreciation.

Of the show, I can testify that it was truly magnificent, though the
introductory portion was somewhat spoilt by the too great prevalence of
the bic