Part 15 (1/2)
The language she used, when freed from the technical phrases of her trade, was good enough for every day, and she did not distinguish herself by any specialty of bad English.
She asked her customer, with her most insinuating smile, if he would have her ”run the cards for him,” and on receiving an affirmative answer she took the pack of playing cards into her velvet hands, pawed them dexterously over a few times to shuffle them, laid them in three rows with the faces upward, and softly purred the following words:
”I am uncertain whether to run you a club or a diamond, for I do not exactly see how it is; but I will run you a club first, and if you find that it does not tell your past history, please to mention the fact to me, and I will then run you a diamond.”
She then proceeded to mention a number of fict.i.tious events which she a.s.serted had happened in the past life of her listener, but that individual, who did not find that her revelations agreed with his own knowledge of his former history, tremblingly informed her of that fact; and she then, with a most vicious contraction of the overhanging eyebrows, broke short the thread of her fanciful story, and proceeded to ”run him a diamond.”
She evidently was determined to make the diamond come nearer the truth-to which end she dexterously strove by a series of very sharp cross-questionings to elicit some circ.u.mstance of his early history, on which she might enlarge, or to get some clue to his present circ.u.mstances, and hopes, and aspirations, that she might find some peg on which to hang a prediction with an appearance of probability. The Individual-with humiliation he confesses it-was a bachelor. His heart had proved unsusceptible, and Cupid had hitherto failed to hit him. On this occasion he proved characteristically unimpressible; and the insinuating smile, the inquiring look, and the winning manner, all failed of effect, and he remained pertinaciously non-committal.
Finding this to be the case, the feline Madame changed her tactics, and, as if to spite her intractable customer, began to prophesy innumerable ills and evils for him. She apparently strove to mitigate, in some degree, the sting of her predictions by an increased softness of manner, which was only a more cat-like demeanor than ever. She spoke as follows-the cold eye growing more cruel, and the wicked smile more treacherous every instant. First, however, came this guileful question, which was but a declaration of war under a flag of truce:
”You do not want me to flatter you, do you? You want me to tell you exactly what I see in the cards, do you not?” The customer stated that he was able to bear at least the recital of his future adversity, even if, when the reality came, he should be utterly smashed; whereupon she proceeded:
”I see here a great disappointment; you will be disappointed in business, and the disappointment will be very bitter and hard to bear-but that is not all, nor the worst, by any means. I see a burial-it may be only a death of one of your dearest friends, or some near relative, such as your sister, but I see that you yourself are weak in the chest and lungs; you are impulsive, proud, ambitious, and quick-tempered, which last quality tends much to aggravate any diseases of the chest, and I fear that the burial may be your own. Your disease is serious, you cannot live long, I think-I do not think you will live a year-in fact, there is the strongest probability that you will die before nine months. I think you will certainly die before nine months, but if you survive, it will only be after a most severe and painful illness, in the course of which you will undergo the extreme of human suffering. I see that you love a light-complexioned lady, but her friends object to her marriage with you, and are doing all they can to prevent it. A dark-complexioned man is trying to get her away from you; you must beware of him or he will do you great injury, for he has both the will and the power; he has already deceived and injured you, and will do so again even more deeply than he has yet. I see a journey, trouble, and misfortune, grief, sorrow, heavy loss, and heaviness of heart. I again tell you that you will die before nine months; but if you chance to survive, it will only be to encounter perpetual crosses and misfortunes. I might, if I was disposed to flatter you and give you false hopes, tell you that you will be lucky, fortunate in business, that you will get the lady, and I might promise you all sorts of good luck, but I don't want to flatter you; it would be much more agreeable to me to tell you a good life, for it sometimes pains me more than I can tell you to read bad lives to people, and I feel it very deeply; but I a.s.sure you that I never saw anybody's cards run as badly as do yours-I never saw so many losses and crosses, and so much trouble and misfortune in anybody's cards in my whole life-even if you outlive the nine months you will have the greatest trouble in getting the lady, and will always have bad luck.”
She then tried by means of the cards to spell out the Inquirer's name, but failed utterly, not getting a single letter right; then she recommenced and threatened him with so much bad luck that he began almost to fear that he would break his leg before he rose from his chair, or would instantly fall down in a fit and be carried off to die at the Hospital. She told him that his lucky days were the 1st, 5th, 17th, 27th, and 29th of every month. Then perceiving that his feelings were deeply moved by the intractability of the ”cruel parients” of the light-complexioned lady, and the black look of things generally, she slightly relented, and went on to say:
”If you will put your trust in me, and take my advice as a friend, I can sell you something that will surely secure you the lady, and thwart all your enemies-it is not for my interest that I tell you this, for upon my honor I make only five s.h.i.+llings upon fifty dollars' worth-it is no trick, but it is a charm which you must wear about you, and which you must wish over about the girl at stated times, and it will be sure to have the desired effect.”
The customer asked the price of this wonderful charm.
”It is from five to fifty dollars, but as you are so extraordinarily unlucky I would advise you to take the full charm. It is the _Chinese Ruling Planet Charm_, and I import it from China at great expense. You must wear it about you, and every time you use it you must do it in the name of G.o.d; so you see there can be no demon about it. By means of this charm I have brought together husbands and wives who have been apart for three years, and I say a woman who can do that is doing good, and there is no demon about her. While you wear it you will not die or meet with bad luck, but it will change the whole current of your life.”
She then told her unlucky hearer to make a wish and she would tell him by the cards whether he could have it or not. The answer was in the negative, and it was evident that nothing but the _Chinese Ruling Planet Charm_ would save him, and no less than $50 worth of that. So the smiling Madame returned to the charge.
”If you will take my advice as a friend, take the charm; it is for your sake only that I say this, for I make nothing by it-but I feel an interest in you, and I wish you would buy the charm for my sake as well as your own, for I want to see its effect on a fortune so bad as yours. If you don't buy it, and all kinds of ill-fortune befalls you, don't say I didn't warn you, and don't call Madame Clifton a humbug; but if you do buy it, you may be sure that you will ever bless the day you saw Madame Clifton.”
It is, perhaps, needless to state that the Individual didn't have with him the fifty dollars to pay for the charm, but intimated that he would call again, after he got his year's salary.
She then said: ”If you happen to call when I am engaged, tell the girl to say that you want to see me about _medicine_, and I will see you, for I never put off anybody who wants _medicine_, no matter who is with me, say _medicine_, and I will see you instantly.” Here she softly showed her visitor to the door, and smiled on him until he stood on the outside steps. He then departed, secretly wondering what kind of ”medicine” she was prepared to furnish in case any unlooked for occasion should suggest a second call. Her last remark suggested that Madame Clifton derives a larger profit from the peculiar kinds of ”_medicine_” she deals in, than from all her other witchery.
CHAPTER XVI.
Details the particulars of a morning call on Madame Harris, of No. 80 West 19th Street, and how she covered up her beautiful head in a black bag.
CHAPTER XVI.
MADAME HARRIS, No. 80 WEST 19TH STREET, NEAR SIXTH AVENUE.
Madame Harris is one of the most ignorant and filthy of all the witches of New York. She does not depend entirely on her ”astrology” for her subsistence, but relies on it merely to bring in a few dollars in the spare hours not occupied in the practice of the other dirty trades by which she picks up a dishonest living. She has a good many customers, and in one way and another she contrives to get a good deal of money from the gullible public. She has been engaged in business a number of years, and has thriven much better than she probably would, had she been employed in an honester avocation.
The ”Individual” paid her a visit, and carefully noted down all her valuable communications; he has told the whole story in the words following:
We all believe in Aladdin, and have as much faith in his uncle as in our own; but we don't know the pattern of his lamp, we have no photograph of the genii that obeyed it, and we can make no correct computation of the market value of the two hundred slaves with jars of jewels on their heads. The customer, who is determined that posterity shall be able to make no such complaint of him or of his history, here solemnly undertakes, upon the faith of his salary, to relate the unadorned truth, and to indulge in no _ad libitum_ variations-imagining, while he writes, that he sees in the distance the critical public, like a many-headed Gradgrind, singing out l.u.s.tily for ”Facts, sir, facts.”
The next fact, then, to be investigated and sworn to, is this Madame Harris, a very dirty female fact indeed, residing in the upper part of the city, and advertising as follows: