perhaps well to mention that Forsyth Street is a
dirty thoroughfare, two streets east of the Bowery, and that it
is filled for the most part with small groceries, junk shops,
swill milk dispensaries, and stalls for the sale of diseased
vegetables and decaying fruit, and that the inhabitants are
mostly delegates from Africa, and from the Green Isle of the Sea.

Immediately adjoining the domicil of Madame de Bellini is a
filthy little vegetable store, and on the opposite corner is an
equally filthy Irish grocery, where are dispensed swill milk and
poisoned whiskey. The residence of the Madame is a low two-story
brick house, of rather better appearance than many of its
neighbors, which are principally wooden buildings with those
old-fashioned peculiar roofs, with little windows close under the
cornice, which make a house look as if it had had its hat knocked
over its eyes.

Madame de Bellini is a Dutchwoman of very large dimensions, being
a two-hundred-and-fifty-pounder at the lowest estimate. Like most
fat women, she is good-natured and smiling. She is apparently 35
years old, of pleasant manners, somewhat embarrassed by the
difficulty she has in communicating her ideas in English, and is
much neater in person and dress than the majority of ladies in
the same line of business. She would be a popular bar-maid at a
lager-bier saloon, and would preside over the fortunes of the
sausage and Swiss cheese table, with eminent success, and
satisfaction to the public.

She welcomed the Cash Customer in a jolly sort of way, introduced
him to her private apartment, and seated him on a chair at one
side of a little table, while she bestowed herself on a stool
opposite.

Having ascertained that he did not speak German with sufficient
fluency to carry on an animated conversation in that tongue, or
to comprehend a rapidly spoken discourse delivered therein, she
was compelled to ventilate her English, which she did, beginning
as follows:

"I speak not vera mooch goot English--I speak German and French,
but no goot English."

The Individual, with his usual caution, inquired how much she
proposed to charge for her services. She responded thus:

"I tell your for_toon_ fier ein tollar, or I can tell your
for_toon_ fier ein half-tollar."

Fifty cents' worth was enough to begin with, so she took his left
hand in her huge fist, and as a preliminary operation squeezed it
till he gave it up for lost, and in the intervals of his
suff