If this simple ritual has been correctly carried out the tea-leaves, whether many or few, will be found distributed about the bottom and sides of the cup.  The fortune may be equally well told whether there are many leaves or few; but of course there must be some, and therefore the tea should not have been made in a pot provided with one of the patent arrangements that stop the leaves from issuing from the spout when the beverage is poured into the cups.  There is nothing to beat one of the plain old-fashioned earthenware teapots, whether for the purpose of preparing a palatable beverage or for that of providing the means of telling a fortune.

CHAPTER III

GENERAL PRINCIPLES TO BE OBSERVED IN READING THE CUP

The interior of the tea-cup when it is ready to be consulted will exhibit the leaves scattered apparently in a fortuitous and accidental manner, but really in accordance with the muscular action of the left arm as controlled by the mind at whose bidding it has worked.  These scattered leaves will form lines and circles of dots or small leaves and dust combined with stems, and groups of leaves in larger or smaller patches:  apparently in meaningless confusion.

Careful notice should now be taken of all the shapes and figures formed inside the cup.  These should be viewed front different positions, so that their meaning becomes clear.  It is not very easy at first to see what the shapes really are, but after looking at them carefully they become plainer.  The different shapes and figures in the cup must be taken together in a general reading.  Bad indications will be balanced by good ones; some good ones will be strengthened by others, and so on.

It is now the business of the seer—­whether the consultant or some adept to whom he has handed the cup to be read—­to find some fairly close resemblance between the groups formed by the leaves and various natural or artificial objects.  This part of the performance resembles the looking for ‘pictures in the fire’ as practised by children in nurseries and school-rooms and occasionally by people of a larger growth.  Actual representations of such things as trees, animals, birds, anchors, crowns, coffins, flowers, and so forth may by the exercise of the powers of observation and imagination be discerned, as well as squares, triangles, and crosses.  Each of these possesses, as a symbol, some fortunate or unfortunate signification.  Such signs may be either large or small, and their relative importance must be judged according to their size.  Supposing the symbol observed should be that indicating the receipt of a legacy, for instance:  if small it would mean that the inheritance would be but trifling, if large that it would be substantial, while if leaves grouped to form a resemblance to a coronet accompany the sign for a legacy, a title would probably descend upon the consultant at the same time.  The meaning of all the symbols of this nature likely to be formed by the fortuitous arrangement of leaves in a tea-cup is fully set forth in the concluding chapter; and it is unnecessary therefore to enlarge upon this branch of the subject.