Part 6 (1/2)
The girl, who had disappeared, now returned, and with an air of mystery slipped into the hand of her visitor a red card, on which was inscribed:
+-------------------------------------------------+ |No Person allowed to remain in the Establishment | |without a ticket. Please present this on entering| |Madame Morrow's room. Fee in full, $1. | +-------------------------------------------------+
For an hour and a half after the receipt of this card and the payment of $1 therefor, did Johannes quietly wait in the room with the big basket, being entertained meanwhile by the two women who conversed with each other upon the relative merits of engines No. 18 and 27, and with a long discussion as to the comparative personal beauty of ”Tom” and ”d.i.c.k,” who, it seemed, belonged respectively to those two mechanical const.i.tuents of our Fire Department.
At the end of that time the Irish girl, who had succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng ”d.i.c.k's” claim to her satisfaction, arose and invited the stranger to the room of Madame Morrow.
He pa.s.sed up a narrow flight of stairs, the condition of which, as to dirt, was concealed by no friendly carpet; then he sailed into a front parlor which was furnished elegantly, and perhaps gorgeously, with carpets, mirrors, sofas, and all the usual requirements of a lady's apartment.
Madame herself appeared at the door. She is a tall, sallow-looking woman, with a complexion the color of old parchment: with light brown eyes and light hair; being attired in a handsome delaine dress of half-mourning, and decorated with a costly cameo pin and ear-drops, she looked not unlike a servant out for a holiday, making a sensation in her mistress's finery.
She led her lovely visitor into a little closet-like room, in which were a bureau, two chairs, a table, and a small stand, covered with a number of her business hand-bills and a pack of cards. She asked first: ”What month was you born?” On receiving the answer, the Astonisher took a book from the bureau and read as follows: ”A person born in this month is of an amiable and frank disposition, benevolent, and an amiable and desirable partner in the marriage relation. Your lucky days are Tuesdays and Thursdays, on which days you may enter on any undertaking, or attempt any enterprise with a good prospect of success.” Then she took up the cards again, and after the usual shuffling and cutting, the Astonisher fired away as follows.
”You face luck, you face prosperity, you face true love and disinterested affection, you face a speedy marriage, you face a letter which will come in three days and will contain pleasant news-you face a ring, you face a present of jewelry done up in a small package; the latter will come within two hours, two days, two weeks, or two months-you face an agreeable surprise, you face the death of a friend, you face the seven of clubs which is the luckiest card in the pack-you face two gentlemen with a view to matrimony, one of whom has brown hair and brown eyes, and the other has lighter hair and blue eyes-they are both thinking of you at the present time, but the nearest one you face is the one with light eyes-your marriage runs within six or nine months.”
There was very much more to the same effect, but as Johannes was pining all this time for a look at his future husband, he did not pay the strictest attention to it. Finally, when she had finished talking, she said, ”Step this way and see your future husband.”
This was the eventful moment.
The disguised one went to the table and there beheld a pine box, about the size of an ordinary candle-box, though shallower; it was unpainted, and decidedly unornamental as an article of furniture. In one end of it was an aperture about the size of the eye-hole of a telescope; this was carefully covered with a small black curtain. This mystic contrivance was placed upon a table so low that the husband-seeker was compelled to go on his knees to get his eye down low enough to see through. He accomplished this feat without grumbling, although his knees were scarified by the whalebones which surrounded him. The Astonisher then drew aside the little curtain with a grand flourish, and her customer beheld an indistinct figure of a bloated face with a mustache, with black eyes and black hair; it was a hang-dog, thief-like face, and one that he would not have pa.s.sed in the street without involuntarily putting his hands on his pockets to a.s.sure himself that all was right. But he felt that he had no hope of a future husband if he did not accept this one, and he made up his mind to be reconciled to the match.
This contrivance for showing the ”future husband” is sometimes called the Magic Mirror, and may be procured at any optician's for a dollar and a quarter. The ”future husband” may of course be varied to suit circ.u.mstances, by merely s.h.i.+fting the pictures at one end of the instrument; or a horse or a dog might be subst.i.tuted with equal propriety and probability.
Disappointed, and sick at heart and stomach, the Cash Customer bore away for home, and accomplished the return voyage without disaster. He didn't so much mind the unexpected difference in the personal attractions of Madame Morrow from what he had hoped, for he had been rather accustomed to disappointments of that sort of late, but he couldn't see that his admission to the camp of the enemy had enabled him to spy out anything of particular advantage to him in future operations. So he cogitated and mournfully whistled slow tunes, as he cut himself out of his unaccustomed harness by the help of a pen-knife with a file-blade.
CHAPTER VII.
Contains a full account of the interview of the Cash Customer with Doctor Wilson, the Astrologer, of No. 172 Delancey Street.
The Fates decree that he shall ”pizon his first Wife.” HOORAY!!
CHAPTER VII.
DR. WILSON, No. 172 DELANCEY STREET.
This ignorant, half-imbecile old man is the only _wizard_ in New York whose fame has become public. There are several other men who sometimes, as a matter of favor to a curious friend, exercise their astrological skill, but they do not profess witchcraft as a means of living; they do not advertise their gifts, but only dabble in necromancy in an amateur way, more as a means of amus.e.m.e.nt than for any other purpose. On the other hand Dr.
Wilson freely uses the newspapers to announce to the public his star-reading ability, and his willingness, for a consideration, to tell all events, past and future, of a paying customer's life.
He professes to do all his fortune-telling in a ”strictly scientific” manner, and it is but justice to him to say, that he alone, of all the witches of New York, drew a horoscope, consulted books of magic, made intricate mathematical calculations, and made a show of being scientific. In his case only was any attempt made to convince the seeker after hidden wisdom, that modern fortune-telling is aught else than very lame and shabby guesswork. The old Doctor has by no means so many customers as many of his female rivals; he is old and unprepossessing-were he young and handsome the case might be otherwise.
He has been a pretended ”botanic physician,” or what country people term a ”root doctor;” but failing to earn a living by the practice of medicine, he took up ”Demonology and Witchcraft” to aid him to eke out a scanty subsistence. He does but little in either branch of his business, the public appearing to have slight faith in his ability either to cure their maladies or foretell their future.
The character of his surroundings is noted in the following description, and his oracular communication is given, word for word.
An Hour with a Wizard.-The Cash Customer is to ”Pizon”
his First Wife, and then get Another. Hooray!
”I am like a vagabond pig with no family ties, who has no lady pig to welcome him home o'nights, and with no tender sucklings to call him 'papa,' in that prattling porcine language that must fall so sweetly on the ears of all parents of innocent porklings.
Like Oth.e.l.lo, I have no wife, and really I can see little hope in the future.”
Thus moralized the ”Individual,” the morning after his experiment with the women's gear, and his failure to learn, at a single lesson, the whole art of catching a wife. Then he bethought him that perhaps the art could not be learned without a master; and then came the other thought that no one could tell so well how to win a witch-wife as one who had himself been successful in that risky experiment.