“Certainly, certainly, but would he have been there if it had not been for my prognostications?”
“That may be, that may be,” answered the cook, scratching his head.
“Master cook, let me prognosticate you. It will only cost——”
“No,” interrupted the cook abruptly. “But,” he hesitated, “I don’t like that influence every day just at my night-cooking.”
“It is very bad,” interjected the fortune-teller, shaking his head ruefully. “I would not be you for all the cash of Ho.”
“What is it?” demanded the cook hastily. “Tell me, master, tell me.”
The fortune-teller jumped back dramatically and threw up his hands. “I am overwhelmed,” he cried in lofty injured tones, “dumb, speechless, a dying phœnix.”
The cook scratched his head and looked sheepishly at him.
“Master cook,” the fortune-teller continued in the same severe voice, “you pretend to be a merchant, and yet you are unable to distinguish great profits from a fly’s head. Is it not known among honourable merchants that just scales and full measures injure no man? I am pained! Goodbye, master cook.” The fortune-teller began to wrap up his paraphernalia.
The cook scratched his head.