oil still adhered to the face, filled up
the wrinkles of the cheeks, found ample lodging in the ears and
on the neck, and crowding under the horny and distorted nails,
made them still more ugly; and streaks and ridges of dirt clung
to every portion of the garments, which answered to the bark or
rind of this perspiring herb.

To drop this botanic figure of speech, Dr. Wilson is a man of
about fifty-eight years of age, rather stout and thick-set, with
grey eyes, and hair which was once brown, but is now grey, and
with thin brown whiskers; the top of his head is nearly bald,
except a few thin, furzy, short hairs, which made his skull look
as if it had been kept in that damp room until mould had gathered
on it. He was in his shirt sleeves, and was attired, for the most
part, in a pair of sheep's grey pantaloons, which were made to
cover that fraction of his body between his ankles and his
armpits; the little patch of shirt that was visible above the
waistband of that garment, was streaked with irregular lines of
dirty black, as if it had gone into half mourning for the
scarcity of water.

The man of science made a musty remark or two about the weather
and the walking, and then, after carefully seating himself at the
decrepit table, he said: "I suppose your business is of a
fortun'-tellin' natur; if so, my terms is one dollar." The
affirmative answer to the question and the payment of the dollar
put new energy into the mouldy old man, and he prepared to
astonish the beholder.

He demanded the age of his visitor, and then desired to be
informed of the date of his birth, with particular reference to
the exact time of day; Johannes drummed up his youthful
recollections of that interesting event, and gave the day, the
hour, and the minute, with his accustomed accuracy. The sage made
an exact minute of these wet-nurse items on a cheap slate with a
stub of a pencil; then taking another cheap slate, he proceeded
to draw a horoscope thereon, pausing a little over the signs of
the zodiac, as if he was a little out in his astronomy, and
wasn't exactly certain whether there should be twelve or twenty.
He settled this little matter by filling one half the slate as
full as it would hold, and then carrying some to the other side,
so as to have a few on hand in case of any emergency.

When the figure was drawn, and all the mysterious signs
completed, the shirt-sleeve prophet became absorbed in an
intricate calculation of such myste