tly attired, and, in fact, a most
grateful air of cleanliness pervaded the entire establishment,
and it was a refreshing contrast to most of the dens of the
fairer-skinned witches heretofore encountered by the cash
delegate.

The sable one entered into conversation, and a few minutes were
passed in cheerful chat, in the course of which she thus referred
to the scapegrace husband of one of her numerous daughters: "They
think Anson is dead, but I can't station him dead. I think he's
at sea somewhere, or in a foreign land, but I can't station him
dead. He might as well be under ground for all the good he is,
for he is such a poor, mis'able, drinkin' feller that he aint no
use, but, after all, I can't run him dead."

At last, the object of the visit was mentioned, and, to the
individual's great surprise, Mrs. Grommer positively and
peremptorily refused to give him the benefit of her prophetic
powers.

She said: "It aint no use; I never does for gentlemen. I does
sometimes for ladies, but I can't do it for gentlemen."
Remonstrance and entreaty were alike useless; she was immovable.
At last, she said she would call her "old man," who could tell
fortunes as well as she could, but she added, with a determined
shake of the head: "He'll do it, but he will charge you a dollar;
and he wont do it under, neither." When her hearer expressed his
willingness to learn his future fate by the masculine medium, she
addressed him thus: "You station there, in that chair, and I'll
send him." The disappointed one "stationed" in the designated
chair, and awaited the coming of the "old man." He soon appeared
and seated himself, ready to begin.

"Old Man" Grommer is a professor of the whitewashing branch of
decorative art. He occasionally relaxes his noble mind from the
arduous mental labor attendant upon the successful carrying on of
his regular business, and condescends to earn an easy dollar by
fortune-telling. He is a shrewd-looking old man, with a dash of
white blood in his composition; his hair curls tightly all over
his head, but is elaborated on each side of his face into a
single hard-twisted ringlet; short crisped whiskers, streaked
with grey, encircle his face, and an imperial completes his
hirsute attractions; his cheeks and forehead are marked with the
small-pox.

He was attired in a grey and striped dress, the peculiarity of
which was that the coat and vest were bound with wide stripes of
black velvet. He speaks with but li