Page:Baboohurrybungsh00anstiala.djvu/66

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44
BABOO HURRY BUNGSHO

imperceptivity) that, the material being black as a Stygian, this criticism applied to the portraitures of all alike!

Farther on I presented her and the female gooseberry with a pocket-handkerchief a-piece, interwoven by a mechanism with their baptismal appellation (another rupee!).

Then we arrived at a cage containing an automatic Devil revealing the future for a penny in the slit, and Miss Jessimina worked the oracle with a coin advanced by myself, and the demon, after flashing his optics and consulting sundry playing-cards, did presently produce a small paper which she opened eagerly.

Miss Jess, (after perusal). Only fancy! It says I'm "to marry a dark man, and go for a long journey, and be very rich." What ridiculous nonsense! do you not think so, Prince?

Myself (with a tender sauciness). Poet Shakspeare asserts there are more things in Heaven and earth than the Horatian philosophy. I am not a superstitious—and yet this mechanical demon may have seen correctly through the brick wall of Futurity. Have you not a worshipful adorer who might be described as dark, and to whose native land it is a long journey?

Miss Jess, (with the complexion of a tomato). It's time we took our seats for the performance. And you are not to be a silly!

It is notorious that the English female