EASY MONEY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3030, 17 March 1917, Page 10

EASY MONEY

AND THE GENTLE ART OF GETTING IT

(By "Wi.") One of these bright fine sun-shiny days, I will strafe my conscience, and get out after the easy money. There are ways and ways. For choice, givo mo a small room handy to tho traffic, sonio art cretonne for the arras, a bottle of Condy's fluid, the which to achieve at trifling cost the requisite tint of the East, a flowing robe, and black wig, and whiskers of tho deepest dye; also two chairs, one small table with a red covor of serpentine pattern, one glass ball, a pack of cards, and an oleograph study of the Fates. With these, ladies and gentlemen, 1 will guarantee to produce tho easy money in a steady flow of half-crowns.

The idea camo to mo ono evening not so very long ago, I was'walking along the street —a street in this'town —pondering over tho eternal question: Will tho day ever come when I'll be able to get money without working for it? I was iust on the point of giving it up for tho umpteenth timo when my eye fell upon a sign that informed me that Madame Slapuppski (from ) was prepared to spend twelve long, weary hours per diem reading peoplo's characters and discussing their future prospects on' the basis of their characters. I had some silver in my pocket—it was pay day —an hour to spare, and a burning- dcsiro to have a look at Madame Slapuppski. I groped my way upa dark and narrow stairway, and presently found myself at Madame's door, which, in response to my knock, was opened bv Madame herself. '"You wish to seo me?" she inquired.

I sianified assent. ; . "Have you got an. appointment.'' (Item— always ask 'om if they'vo got appointments.) *■'•. "No," I said. . "Yon have to make an, appointment, you know, or else I can't sec you. _ "I see," said I, making a moro to go hack. . "Then perhaps—" "No—no," said.she, "I.can see you

now." She then drew aside the folds of the arras, and I wont in...' At anyrate, I said to myself, I wouldn't have to get mixed up with a foreign language. In her younger days Madanio iincl prohable'"knocked 'em in tho Old" Kent Road" many a Sunday afternoon and oft. There was nothing Slapuppski about Madame, except tho way she took my half-crown, and-rbut this 6tory is running away with me.Wo sat us down, as Tennyson would say. Tho room was dimly lit, and prophetic shadows luiked in the corners. On the table was a crystal, and on the crystal a small piece of crimson cloth.' There, was also a pack of cards. Madame herself was dressed in black. She was forty, if 'she was a day. Wo looked at each other, the Sybu and the Boob. Presently she opened vhe discussion. , - "Do you want a reading?" she asked.

"What's a.wading?" I inquired. "I oan tell your character by tho palm, or' fhe crystal, or the cards." r-smiled.' ."The truth, tho whole truth, and nothing but—s'welp me?" She frowned. f'There's nothing funny about-my business," she said, severely. "I tell everything—everything, good or bad.".- ' , ~ „, I hurriedly composed myself, lam quite serious," said I. "Go ahead.' "Cards?"

. I nodded; - , ,_,-.. Sho picked up the pack, shuffled it, Slid dealt out live parallel rows. They wero grubby cards, bent at the edges. Obviously they had' been shuffled over many hideous pasts and.rosy futures. Madame Slapuppski gazed at them .with, an air of far. Eastern .abstraction. What disreputable delinquencies,' what crowning virtues, was. she going to fork out of the silencer- ■ I wished myself outside again wiin my money safe in my pocket. ■ ' . . Presently she looked at me, and immediately 'I felt conscious of guilt— accumulated guilt of past years. 1 swallowed my apprehension with a been thinking a lot about somo idea lately," she said This covered a fair field. In the hope that she would proceed from the Veneral to the particular, I nodded., ° "You will meet two men," she continued. "One of them is a tall, fair man, and you must watch him—he, a mental note; about, the, tall-fair man and nodded again;- -, ••the other is a short, dark man. He will he a-true friend and help you.to -ret rid of the other man. * I'deoided that when the -feme.came, the tall and the short would have a fair field and no favour: when they stripped for the fray. ■ ' "You will come into some money, she went on. "When?" I asked. .... ./„,-./ , She' ignored the interruption. ■ But vou will have a serious ;i mess.,bjfore. that, and you will go on a: long 8 , sea. V °"Who's going to pay foritif Ldon't got the money, first?" .*«***? { "It will' come to pass—l; Eee : . it in the cards," she said. ,■■:,■■■ I dropped the- inquiry... , . "Beware of a fair woman-not ,ev actly fair-but between the colours, she went on. C„ii „f"'' I mentally took a long farewell ofnever mind, that's "eat nothing to do with the story. Listen to Madame SlapiVppski. „ ' , "You are' ambitious," she was say--1112 "If you'put-you're, mind to it you will succeed. I' think you will succeed-I can see itin thecards. . "Where?". I asked, looking at the mystic fows. : .' . . ' She.-riointed to my fate. "The nine of diamonds and the seven of .hearts lyine side-be-side. That always means good." , i i ■ "I see," said I, and looked impressed. , . Sho looked at the cards again. "\ou will marry a dark Eirl," she said.

Marry! "V-yca?" I managed to say.. "Musical and ro.ftr.ed," she added. "Wh-h-at else?"

"With money." T blew my nose. "Th-h-ank you," I said. "And now, what about, my— my past?" I askfd her. She shuffled aeain for my past, and then roviowed it. It might have been worse. Somewhat patchy, but, .on the whole, according to the Slapuppslci reading of the matter, I had/ nothing to fear from the police. .Then she rose. "My fee.is half .a crown," sho said, in token of the fact that the interview was over.

. I fished out the money and paid. Then I went homo and told' my wife. She said—never miud whnt she said. I'll tell vou this much: it had something to do with the half crown. , Meanwhile, Madamo Slappupski lives and moves, and has her being, and coins money—easy money—your money, my money, Tom's, and Dick's, and Harry's.