“Well, I’ve been there. If I’d had the capital I might have been his manager. That’s the way it goes—an opportunity of making myself solid for life lost because I lacked a few dollars,” and Wycherley chuckles even while he speaks in such a dismal strain.
“This fellow isn’t the only fortune teller at the Fair,” the Canadian says.
“By no means. I know of several others right here in the street of Cairo.”
“Yes; I remember one at the lower end—a woman, I believe. I have seen no other.”
“Walk with me. There is one here—they call her the Veiled Fortune Teller of Cairo Street. I don’t know that her predictions are any nearer the truth than the black’s, but somehow the air of mystery surrounding her excites a certain amount of curiosity.”
“I would like to see her. I thought I had exhausted the sights of this street, from the odd barber shop where they lay one down on a bench to shave him, to the shoe store where their stock in trade is yellow and red baboushas or slippers. If there is a veiled mystery here I must see her. You said a woman?”
“Yes, and if one can judge of the faint glimpses seen through the flimsy veil, and by the shapely figure, a beautiful woman, too. Let’s see the time—yes, this is her last hour for receiving to-day. Come along, Aleck, my boy.”
The jovial vagabond almost drags him along, and presently they bring up in front of a stuccoed building. Over a doorway is a sign, so small Aleck does not wonder he missed it, bearing this scroll:
Saidee—the Veiled Fortune Teller.
25 cents.
An Arab boy holds forth, fez and all.