sold himself to Old
Scratch; and, being a servant of the devil, how could he be a good
subject to his majesty? Mrs. Cook assured him, the conjurer was a good
Christian; and that he gained all his knowledge by conversing with the
stars and planets. Thus satisfied, the two friends resolved to consult
him as soon as it should be light; and being directed to the place of his
habitation, set out for it by seven in the morning.

They found the house forsaken, and had already reached the end of the
lane in their return, when they were accosted by an old woman, who gave
them to understand, that if they had occasion for the advice of a
fortune-teller, as she did suppose they had, from their stopping at the
house where Dr. Grubble lived, she would conduct them to a person of much
more eminence in that profession; at the same time she informed them,
that the said Grubble had been lately sent to Bridewell; a circumstance
which, with all his art, he had not been able to foresee. The captain,
without any scruple, put himself and his companion under convoy of this
beldame, who, through many windings and turnings, brought them to the
door of a ruinous house, standing in a blind alley; which door having
opened with a key drawn from her pocket, she introduced them into a
parlour, where they saw no other furniture than a naked bench, and some
frightful figures on the bare walls, drawn or rather scrawled with
charcoal.

Here she left them locked in, until she should give the doctor notice of
their arrival; and they amused themselves with decyphering these
characters and hieroglyphics. The first figure that engaged their
attention was that of a man hanging upon a gibbet, which both considered
as an unfavourable omen, and each endeavoured to avert from his own
person. Crabshaw observed, that the figure so suspended was clothed in a
sailor's jacket and trowsers; a truth which the captain could not deny,
but, on the other hand, he affirmed, that the said figure exhibited the
very nose and chin of Timothy, together with the hump on one shoulder. A
warm dispute ensued, and being maintained with much acrimonious
altercation, might have dissolved the new-cemented friendship of those
two originals, had it not been interrupted by the old sibyl, who, coming
into the parlour, intimated that the doctor waited for them above. She
likewise told them, that he never admitted more than one at a time. This
hint occasioned a fresh contest. The capta