he has told the whole story in the
words following:

We all believe in Aladdin, and have as much faith in his uncle as
in our own; but we don't know the pattern of his lamp, we have no
photograph of the genii that obeyed it, and we can make no
correct computation of the market value of the two hundred slaves
with jars of jewels on their heads. The customer, who is
determined that posterity shall be able to make no such complaint
of him or of his history, here solemnly undertakes, upon the
faith of his salary, to relate the unadorned truth, and to
indulge in no _ad libitum_ variations--imagining, while he writes,
that he sees in the distance the critical public, like a
many-headed Gradgrind, singing out lustily for "Facts, sir,
facts."

The next fact, then, to be investigated and sworn to, is this
Madame Harris, a very dirty female fact indeed, residing in the
upper part of the city, and advertising as follows:

"MADAME HARRIS.--This mysterious Lady is a wonder to
all--her predictions are so true. She can tell all the
events of life. Office, No. 80 West 19th-st., near
6th-av. Hours 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Ladies 25 cts.;
Gentlemen 50 cts. She causes speedy marriages; charge
extra."

Wearily the inquirer plodded his way on foot to West 19th Street,
fearing to trust himself to a stage or car, lest the careless
conversation of the unthinking, and the reprehensible jocularity
of the little boys who hang about the corners of the streets
which intersect the Sixth Avenue, and pelt unwary passengers with
paving-stones, should divert his mind from the importance and
great moral responsibility of his mission.

After encountering a large assortment of the dangers and
discomforts incident to pedestrianism in New York in muddy
weather, he achieved West 19th street, and stood in sight of the
mysterious domicile of Madame Harris.

It is a tenement house, shabby-genteel even in its first
pretentious newness; but it has now lost its former appearance
even of semi-respectability, and has degenerated to a state of
dirt only conceivable by those unhappy families who live two in a
house, and are in a constant state of pot-and-kettle war, and of
mutual refusing to clean out the common hall.

A little mountain of potato skins, and bones, and other kitchen
refuse, round which he was forced to make a detour, plainly said
to the traveller that the population of the house No. 80 were in
the habit of depositing