Part 16 (1/2)

Taking up a pack of cards so overlaid with dirt that it was a work of time and study to tell a queen from a nine spot, or distinguish the knaves from the aces, she presented them with the imperative remark: ”Cut them once.”

Then ensued the following wonderful predictions uttered by a dubious and uncertain voice under the veil-which voice seemed one minute to come from the mouth, then it issued from the throat, then it sprawled out of the stomach, then it was heard from the back of the head under the bonnet, and in the course of a few minutes it came from so many places, that the puzzled hearer was dubious as to its exact whereabouts-these curious effects being, doubtless, attributable to the thick covering over the face. But its various communications, when gathered together, were found to sum up as follows:

”You face back misfortune and trouble, of which you have had much, but they are now behind you, and you have no more to fear.

You will henceforth be successful in business, you will have a great deal of money. Your affection card faces up a young woman with dark eyes and dark hair, about twenty-three years old; she is older than she has led you to believe; there is a dark-complexioned man whom you will see in two days, who is your enemy; you may not know it, but you had better beware of him, for he will do you an injury, if he can; you will see him and speak with him the night of day-after-to-morrow. Your marriage card faces up this dark woman, as I said before. I don't see a great deal of money layin'

round her, but there is plenty of money layin' round you in the future. Somebody will die and leave you money within nine weeks, not counting this week. You was born under the planet Mars, which gives you two lucky days in every week-Mondays and Thursdays; anything you begin on those days will surely succeed.”

Here she handed the cards to be cut again, which operation disclosed a new feature in the Individual's matrimonial future, for she went on to say:

”There is another woman who faces your love-card, who has light hair and light eyes; she favors your love-card and will be your first wife; you will have five children-four girls and one boy; look out for the dark-complexioned man, for he favors your first wife, and, though she does not favor him very much, he will try to get her away from you. Your line of life is long; you will live to be sixty-eight years old, but you will die very suddenly, for your line of death crosses your line of life very suddenly, which always brings sudden death.”

Having given this cheering promise, she again held out the cards to be cut, and said, ”Cut them again now, and make a wish at the same time, and I will tell you if you will have your wish.”

When the required ceremony had been solemnly performed, she continued: ”You will have your wish, but not right away; don't expect to get it before week after next, but then you will be sure to have it, for there is no disappointment in the cards for you.” She then informed her customer that she always answered unerringly two questions, which he was now at liberty to propound. He made a couple of inquiries relative to his future business prospects, and received in reply the promise of most gratifying results.

Having then, as he supposed, got his money's worth, he was about to take his leave, when she interrupted him thus:

”I have a charm for securing good luck to whoever wears it; you can wear it, and your most intimate friend would never suspect it; my charge is one dollar for gentlemen; a great many have bought it of me; many merchants who were on the point of failing have come to me and possessed this charm, and been saved; you had better possess it, for it will be sure to bring you good luck; if you possess it, you will always be successful in business; Mr.

Lynch of Mott Street possessed it, and has been very lucky ever since, besides a great number I could name; my advice to you is, possess the charm.”

She then put her elbows on her knees after the manner of a Fulton Market apple-pedler, in which cla.s.sic att.i.tude she awaited an answer. The decision was not favorable to her hopes; for the economical customer concluded not to invest in the charm, although it had brought such excellent fortune to Mr. Lynch of Mott Street. He departed, encountering again in his progress the weak-eyed one, who met him with a smile, escorted him to the door with a great laugh, and dismissed him with a joyous grin.

CHAPTER XVII.

Treats of the peculiarities of several Witches in a single batch.

CHAPTER XVII.

A BATCH OF WITCHES.

The fortune-tellers so elaborately described in the foregoing chapters are by no means the only ones in New York, engaged in that lucrative occupation; there are several others who were visited by the Individual, but who in their surroundings approach so nearly to those already set down, that a detailed description of each would necessarily be a somewhat monotonous repet.i.tion. So the prophecy only of each one is here writ down, with a few words suggestive of the character of the immediate neighborhood, leaving the imaginative reader to fill up the blank himself, or to turn back to some foregoing chapter for a picture of a similar locality, if he prefers it ready-made to his hands.

MADAME DE BELLINI, No. 159 FORSYTH STREET.

For the benefit of those not familiar with the streets of New York, it is perhaps well to mention that Forsyth Street is a dirty thoroughfare, two streets east of the Bowery, and that it is filled for the most part with small groceries, junk shops, swill milk dispensaries, and stalls for the sale of diseased vegetables and decaying fruit, and that the inhabitants are mostly delegates from Africa, and from the Green Isle of the Sea.

Immediately adjoining the domicil of Madame de Bellini is a filthy little vegetable store, and on the opposite corner is an equally filthy Irish grocery, where are dispensed swill milk and poisoned whiskey. The residence of the Madame is a low two-story brick house, of rather better appearance than many of its neighbors, which are princ.i.p.ally wooden buildings with those old-fas.h.i.+oned peculiar roofs, with little windows close under the cornice, which make a house look as if it had had its hat knocked over its eyes.

Madame de Bellini is a Dutchwoman of very large dimensions, being a two-hundred-and-fifty-pounder at the lowest estimate. Like most fat women, she is good-natured and smiling. She is apparently 35 years old, of pleasant manners, somewhat embarra.s.sed by the difficulty she has in communicating her ideas in English, and is much neater in person and dress than the majority of ladies in the same line of business. She would be a popular bar-maid at a lager-bier saloon, and would preside over the fortunes of the sausage and Swiss cheese table, with eminent success, and satisfaction to the public.

She welcomed the Cash Customer in a jolly sort of way, introduced him to her private apartment, and seated him on a chair at one side of a little table, while she bestowed herself on a stool opposite.

Having ascertained that he did not speak German with sufficient fluency to carry on an animated conversation in that tongue, or to comprehend a rapidly spoken discourse delivered therein, she was compelled to ventilate her English, which she did, beginning as follows:

”I speak not vera mooch goot English-I speak German and French, but no goot English.”