Having, at last, selected your combination somehow or other, you enter the office with something of that shamefaced feeling which, I suppose, a man must be conscious of the first time that he ever enters the back-door of a pawnbroker's establishment.
The interior of these offices is the same throughout.

A low, dark room, with a long ink-stained desk at one side, behind which, pen in ear, is seated an official, more grimy even, and more snuffy than the run of his tribe.

Opposite the desk there is sure to be a picture of the Madonna with a small glass lamp before it, wherein a feeble wick floats and flickers in a pool of rancid oil.

On the wall you may read a list of the virtuous maidens who are to receive marriage portions of from 5 pounds downwards, on the occasion of the lottery being drawn at some religious festival.

Indeed, throughout, the lottery is conducted on a strictly religious footing.