CHAPTER XVIII. Conclusion. 395

CHAPTER I.

Which is simply explanatory, so far as regards the book, but in

which the author takes occasion to pay himself several merited

compliments, on the score of honesty, ability, etc.

CHAPTER I.

WHICH IS MERELY EXPLANATORY.

The first undertaking of the author of these pages will be to

convince his readers that he has not set about making a merely

funny book, and that the subject of which he writes is one that

challenges their serious and earnest attention. Whatever of

humorous description may be found in the succeeding chapters, is

that which grows legitimately out of certain features of the

theme; for there has been no overstrained effort to _make_ fun

where none naturally existed.

The Witches of New York exert an influence too powerful and too

wide-spread to be treated with such light regard as has been too

long manifested by the community they have swindled for so many

years; and it is to be desired that the day may come when they

will be no longer classed with harmless mountebanks, but with

dangerous criminals.

People, curious in advertisements, have often read the

"Astrological" announcements of the newspapers, and have turned

up their critical noses at the ungrammatical style thereof, and

indulged the while in a sort of innocent wonder as to whether

these transparent nets ever catch any gulls. These matter-of-fact

individuals have no doubt often queried in a vague, purposeless

way, if there really can be in enlightened New York any

considerable number of persons who have faith in charms and

love-powders, and who put their trust in the prophetic infallibility

of a pack of greasy playing-cards. It may open the eyes of these

innocent querists to the popularity of modern witchcraft to learn

that the nineteen she-prophets who advertise in the daily

journals of this city are visited every week by an average of

_sixteen hundred people_, or at the rate of more than a dozen

customers a day for each one; and of this immense number

probably two-thirds place implicit confidence in the miserable

stuff they hear and pay for.

It is also true that although a part of these visitors are

ignorant servants, unfortunate girls of the town, or uneducated

overgrown boys, still there are among them not a few men engaged

in respectable and influential professions, and many merchants of

good credit and repute, who periodically consult these women, and

are actually governed by their advice in business affairs of

great moment.

Carriages, attended by liveried servants, not unfrequently stop

at the nearest respectable corner adjoining the abode of a

notorious Fortune-Teller, while some richly-dressed but

closely-veiled woman stealthily glides into the habitation of the

Witch. Many ladies of wealth and social position, led by

curiosity, or other motives, enter these places for the purpose

of hearing their "fortunes told." When these ladies are informed

of the true character of the houses they have thus entered, and

the real business of many of these women whose fortune-telling is

but a screen to intercept the public gaze from it, it is not

likely that any one of them will ever compromise her reputation

by another visit.

People who do not know anything about the subject will perhaps be

surprised to hear that most of these humbug sorceresses are now,

or have been in more youthful and attractive days, women of the

town, and that several of their present dens are vile assignation

houses; and that a number of them are professed abortionists, who

do as much perhaps in the way of child-murder as others whose

names have been more prominently before the world; and they will

be astonished to learn that these chaste sibyls have an

understood partnership with the keepers of houses of

prostitution, and that the opportunities for a lucrative playing

into each other's hands are constantly occurring.

The most terrible truth connected with this whole subject is the

fact that the greater number of these female fortune-tellers are

but doing their allotted part in a scheme by which, in this city,

the wholesale seduction of ignorant, simple-hearted girls, in

the lower walks of life, has been thoroughly systematized.

The fortune-teller is the only one of the organization whose

operations may be known to the public; the other workers--the

masculine go-betweens who lead the victims over the space

intervening between her house and those of deeper shame--are kept

out of sight and are unheard of. There is a straight path between

these two points which is travelled every year by hundreds of

betrayed young girls, who, but for the superstitious snares of

the one, would never know the horrible realities of the other.

The exact mode of proceeding adopted by these conspirators

against virtue, the details of their plans, the various

stratagems by which their victims are snared and led on to

certain ruin, are not fit subjects for the present chapter; but

any individual who is disposed to prosecute the inquiry for

himself will find in the various police records much matter for

his serious cogitation, and may there discover the exact

direction in which to continue his investigations with the

certainty of demonstrating these facts to his perfect satisfaction.

A few months ago, at the suggestion of the editor of one of the

leading daily newspapers of America, a series of articles was

written about the fortune-tellers of New York city, and these

articles were in due time published in that journal, and

attracted no little attention from its readers. These chapters,

with such alterations as were requisite, and with many additions,

form the bulk of this present volume.

The work has been conscientiously done. Every one of the

fortune-tellers described herein was personally visited by the

"Individual," and the predictions were carefully noted down at

the time, word for word; the descriptions of the necromantic

ladies and their surroundings are accurate, and can be corroborated

by the hundreds who have gone over the same ground before and

since. They were treated in the most fair and frank manner; the

same data as to time and date of birth, age, nationality, etc.,

were given in all cases, and the same questions were put to all,

so that the absurd differences in their statements and predictions

result from the unmitigated humbug of their pretended art, and

from no misinformation or misrepresentation on the part of the

seeker after mystic knowledge.

This latter person was perfectly unknown to the worthy ladies of

the black art profession; he was to them simply an individual,

one of the many-headed public, a cash customer, who paid

liberally for all he required, and who, by reason of the dollars

he disbursed, was entitled to the very best witchcraft in the

market.

And he got it.

He undertook a few short journeys in search of the marvellous; he

went on a couple of dozen voyages of discovery without going out

of sight of home; he penetrated to the out-of-the-way regions,

where the two-and-sixpenny witches of our own time grow. He got

his fill of the cheap prophecy of the day, and procured of the

oracles in person their oracularest sayings, at the very highest

market price. For the business-like seers of this age are easily

moved to prophesy by the sight of current moneys of the land, no

matter who presents the same; whereas the oracles of the olden

time dealt only with kings and princes, and nothing less than the

affairs of an entire nation, or a whole territory, served to get

their slow prophetic apparatus into working trim. To the

necromancers of early days the anxieties of private individuals

were as naught, and from the shekels of humble life they turned

them contemptuously away.

It is probably a thorough conviction of the necessity of eating

and drinking, and a constant contemplation from a Penitentiary

point of view of the consequences of so doing without paying

therefor, that induces our modern witches to charge a specific

sum for the exercise of their art, and to demand the inevitable

dollar in advance.

Whatever there is of Sorcery, Astrology, Necromancy, Prophecy,

Fortune-telling, and the Black Art generally, practised at this

time by the professional Witches of New York, is here honestly

set down.

Should any other individual become particularly interested in the

subject, and desire to go back of the present record and make his

exploration personally among the Fortune-tellers, he will find

their present addresses in the newspapers of the day, and can

easily verify what is herein written.

With these remarks as to the intention of this book, the reader

is referred by the Cash Customer to the succeeding chapters for

further information. And the public will find in the advertisements,

appended to the name and number of each mysteriously gifted lady,

the pleasing assurance that she will be happy to see, not only

the Cash Customer of the present writing, but also any and all

other customers, equally cash, who are willing to pay the

customary cash tribute.

CHAPTER II.

Is devoted to the glorification of Madame Prewster of No. 373

Bowery, the Pioneer Witch of New York. The "Individual" also

herein bears his testimony that she is oily and water-proof.

CHAPTER II.

MADAME PREWSTER, No. 373 BOWERY.

This woman is one of the most dangerous of all those in the city

who are engaged in the swindling trade of Fortune Telling, and

has been professionally known to the police and the public of New

York for about fourteen years. The amount of evil she has

accomplished in that time is incalculable, for she has been by no

means idle, nor has she confined her attention even to what

mischief she could work by the exercise of her pretended magic,

but if the authenticity of the records may be relied on, she has

borne a principal part in other illicit transactions of a much

more criminal nature. She has been engaged in the "Witch"

business in this city for more years than has any other one whose

name is now advertised to the public.

If the history of her past life could be published, it would

astound even this community, which is not wont to be startled out

of its propriety by criminal development, for if justice were

done, Madame Prewster would be at this time serving the State in

the Penitentiary for her past misdoings; but, in some of these

affairs of hers, men of so much _respectability_ and political

influence have been implicated, that, having sure reliance on

their counsel and assistance, the Madame may be regarded as

secure from punishment, even should any of her many victims

choose to bring her into court.

The quality of her Witchcraft, by which she ostensibly lives, and

the amount of faith to be reposed in her mystic predictions, may

be seen from the history of a visit to her domicile, which is

hereunto appended in the very words of the "Individual" who made

it.

The "Cash Customer" makes his first Voyage in a Shower,

but encounters an Oily and Waterproof Witch at the end

of his Journey.

It rained, and it _meant_ to rain, and it set about it with a

will.

It was as if some "Union Thunderstorm Company" was just then

paying its consolidated attention to the city and county of New

York; or, as if some enterprising Yankee of hydraulic tendencies,

had contracted for a second deluge and was hurrying up the job to

get his money; or, as if the clouds were working by the job; or,

as if the earth was receiving its rations of rain for the year in

a solid lump; or, as if the world had made a half-turn, leaving

in the clouds the ocean and rivers, and those auxiliaries to

navigation were scampering back to their beds as fast as

possible; or, as if there had been a scrub-race to the earth

between a score or more full-grown rain storms, and they were all

coming in together, neck-and-neck, at full speed.

Despite the juiciness of these opening sentences, the

"Individual" does not propose to accompany the account of his

heroical setting-forth on his first witch-journey with any

inventory of natural scenery and phenomena, or with any

interesting remarks on the wind and weather. Those who have a

taste for that sort of thing will find in a modern circulating

library, elaborate accounts of enough "dew-spangled grass" to

make hay for an army of Nebuchadnezzars and a hundred troops of

horse--of "bright-eyed daisies" and "modest violets," enough to

fence all creation with a parti-colored hedge--of "early larks"

and "sweet-singing nightingales," enough to make musical pot-pies

and harmonious stews for twenty generations of Heliogabaluses; to

say nothing of the amount of twaddle we find in American

sensation books about "hawthorn hedges" and "heather bells," and

similar transatlantic luxuries that don't grow in America, and

never did.

And then the sunrises we're treated to, and the sunsets we're

crammed with, and the "golden clouds," the "grand old woods,"

the "distant dim blue mountains," the "crystal lakes," the

"limpid purling brooks," the "green-carpeted meadows," and the

whole similar lot of affected bosh, is enough to shake the faith

of a practical man in nature as a natural institution, and to

make him vote her an artificial humbug.

So the voyager in pursuit of the marvellous, declines to state

how high the thermometer rose or fell in the sun or in the shade,

or whether the wind was east-by-north, or sou'-sou'-west by a

little sou'.

The "dew on the grass" was not shining, for there was in his

vicinity no dew and no grass, nor anything resembling those rural

luxuries. Nor was it by any means at "early dawn;" on the

contrary, if there be such a commodity in a city as "dawn,"

either early or late, that article had been all disposed of

several hours in advance of the period at which this chapter

begins.

But at midday he set forth alone to visit that prophetess of

renown, Madame Prewster. He was fully prepared to encounter

whatever of the diabolical machinery of the black art might be

put in operation to appal his unaccustomed soul.

But as he set forth from the respectable domicile where he takes

his nightly roost, it rained, as aforementioned. The driving

drops had nearly drowned the sunshine, and through the sickly

light that still survived, everything looked dim and spectral.

Unearthly cars, drawn by ghostly horses, glided swiftly through

the mist, the intangible apparitions which occupied the drivers'

usual stands hailing passengers with hollow voices, and

proffering, with impish finger and goblin wink, silent

invitations to ride. Fantastic dogs sneaked out of sight round

distant corners, or skulked miserably under phantom carts for an

imaginary shelter. The rain enveloped everything with a grey

veil, making all look unsubstantial and unreal; the human

unfortunates who were out in the storm appeared cloudy and

unsolid, as if each man had sent his shadow out to do his work

and kept his substance safe at home.

The "Individual" travelled on foot, disdaining the miserable

compromise of an hour's stew in a steaming car, or a prolonged

shower-bath in a leaky omnibus. Being of burly figure and

determined spirit, he walked, knowing that his "too-solid flesh"

would not be likely "to melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a

dew," and firmly believing that he was not born to be drowned.

He carried no umbrella, preferring to stand up and fight it out

with the storm face to face, and because he detested a contemptible

sneaking subterfuge of an umbrella, pretending to keep him dry,

and all the time surreptitiously leaking small streams down the

back of his neck, and filling his pockets with indigo colored

puddles; and because, also, an umbrella would no more have

protected a man against that storm, than a gun-cotton overcoat

would have availed against the storm of fire that scorched old

Sodom.

He placed his trust in a huge pair of water-proof boots, and a

felt hat that shed water like a duck. He thrust his arms up to

his elbows into the capacious pockets of his coat, drew his head

down into the turned-up collar of that said garment, like a

boy-bothered mud-turtle, and marched on.

With bowed head, set teeth, and sturdy step, the cash customer

tramped along, astonishing the few pedestrians in the street by

the energy and emphasis of his remarks in cases of collision, and

attracting people to the windows to look at him as he splashed

his way up the street. He minded them no more than he did the

gentleman in the moon, but drove forward at his best speed, now

breaking his shins over a dry-goods box, then knocking his head

against a lamp-post; now getting a great punch in the stomach

from an unexpected umbrella, then involuntarily gauging the depth

of some unseen puddle, and then getting out of soundings

altogether in a muddy inland sea; now swept almost off his feet

by a sudden torrent of sufficient power to run a saw-mill, and

only recovering himself to find that he was wrecked on the

curbstone of some side street that he didn't want to go to. At

length, after a host of mishaps, including some interesting but

unpleasant submarine explorations in an unusually large mud-hole

into which he fell full-length, he arrived, soaked and savage, at

the house of Madame Prewster.

This elderly and interesting lady has long been an oily pilgrim

in this vale of tears. The oldest inhabitant cannot remember the

exact period when this truly great prophetess became a fixture in

Gotham, and began to earn her bread and butter by fortune-telling

and kindred occupations. Her unctuous countenance and pinguid

form are known to hundreds on whose visiting lists her name does

not conspicuously appear, and to whom, in the way of business,

she has made revelations which would astonish the unsuspecting

and unbelieving world. She is neither exclusive nor select in her

visitors. Whoever is willing to pay the price, in good money--a

point on which her regulations are stringent--may have the benefit

of her skill, as may be seen by her advertisement:

"CARD.--Madame PREWSTER returns thanks to her friends

and patrons, and begs to say that, after the

thousands, both in this city and Philadelphia, who have

consulted her with entire satisfaction, she feels

confident that in the questions of astrology, love, and

law matters, and books or oracles, as relied on

constantly by Napoleon, she has no equal. She will tell

the name of the future husband, and also the name of

her visitors. No. 373 Bowery, between Fourth and Fifth

streets."

The undaunted seeker after mystic lore rang a peal on the

astonished door-bell that created an instantaneous confusion of

the startled inmates. There was a good deal of hustling about,

and running hither, thither, and to the other place, before any

one appeared; meantime, the dainty fingers of the damp customer

performed other little solos on the daubed and sticky bell-pull,--and

he also amused himself with inspection of, and comments on, the

German-silver plate on the narrow panel, which bore the name of

the illustrious female who occupied these domains.

At last the door was opened by a greasy girl, and the visitor was

admitted to the hall, where he stood for a minute, like a

fresh-water merman, "all dripping from the recent flood."

The juvenile female who had admitted him thus far, evidently took

him for a disreputable character, and stood prepared to prevent

depredations. She planted herself firmly before him in the narrow

hall in an attitude of self-defence, and squaring off scientifically,

demanded his business. Astrology was mentioned, whereupon the

threatening fists were lowered, the saucy under-jaw was

retracted, and the general air of pugnacity was subdued into a

very suspicious demeanor, as if she thought he hadn't any money,

and wanted to storm the castle under false pretences. She

informed him that before matters went any further, he must buy

tickets, which she was prepared to furnish, on receipt of a

dollar and a half; he paid the money, which transaction seemed to

raise him in her estimation to the level of a man who might

safely be trusted where there was nothing he could steal. One

fist she still kept loaded, ready to instantly repel any attack

which might be suddenly made by her designing enemy, the other

hand cautiously departed petticoatward, and after groping about

some time in a concealed pocket, produced from the mysterious

depth a card, too dirty for description, on which these words

were dimly visible:

+----------------------------+

| c N |

| e o |

| 5 n MADAME PREWSTER . |

| 0 t 411 GRAND STREET. |

| s 1 |

+----------------------------+

The belligerent girl then led the way through a narrow hall, up

two flights of stairs into a cold room, where she desired her

visitor to be seated. She then carefully locked one or two doors

leading into adjoining rooms, put the keys in her pocket, and

departed. Before her exit she made a sly demonstration with her

fists and feet, as if she was disposed to break the truce,

commence hostilities, and punch his unprotected head, without

regard to the laws of honorable warfare. She departed, however,

at last, without violence, though the voyager could hear her

pause on each landing, probably debating whether it wasn't best

after all to go back and thrash him before the opportunity was

lost for ever.

This grand reception-room was an apartment about six feet by

eight; it was uncarpeted, and was luxuriously furnished with six

wooden chairs, one stove, with no spark of fire, one feeble

table, one spittoon, and two coal-scuttles.

The view from the window was picturesque to a degree, being made

up of cats, clothes-lines, chimneys, and crockery, and occasionally,

when the storm lifted, a low roof near by suggested stables. The

odor which filled the air had at least the merit of being

powerful, and those to whose noses it was grateful, could not

complain that they did not get enough of it. Description must

necessarily fall far short of the reality, but if the reader will

endeavor to imagine a couple of oil-mills, a Peck-slip ferry-boat,

a soap-and-candle manufactory, and three or four bone-boiling

establishments being simmered together over a slow fire in his

immediate vicinity, he may possibly arrive at a faint and distant

notion of the greasy fragrance in which the abode of Madame

Prewster is immersed.

For an hour and a half by the watch of the Cash Customer (which

being a cheap article, and being alike insensible to the voice of

reason and the persuasions of the watchmaker, would take its own

time to do its work, and the long hands of which generally

succeeded in getting once round the dial in about eighty minutes)

was this too damp individual incarcerated in the room by the

order of the implacable Madame Prewster.

He would long before the end of that time have forfeited his

dollar and a half and beaten an inglorious retreat, but that he

feared an ambuscade and a pitching-into at the fair hands of the

warlike servant.

Finally, this last-named individual came to the rescue, and

conducted him by a circuitous route, and with half-suppressed

demonstrations of animosity, to the basement. This room was

evidently the kitchen, and was fitted up with the customary iron

and brazen apparatus.

A feeble child, just old enough to run alone, had constructed a

child's paradise in the lee of the cooking-stove, and was seated

on a dinner-pot, with one foot in a saucepan; it had been playing

on the wash-boiler like a drum, but was now engaged in decorating

some loaves of unbaked bread with bits of charcoal and splinters

from the broom.

The fighting servant retreated to the far end of the apartment,

where she began to wash dishes with vindictive earnestness,

stopping at short intervals to wave her dish-cloth savagely as a

challenge to instant single combat. There was nothing visible

that savored of astrology or magic, unless some tin candlesticks

with battered rims could be cabalistically construed.

Madame Prewster, the renowned, sat majestically in a Windsor

rocking-chair, extra size, with a large pillow comfortably tucked

in behind her illustrious and rheumatic back. Her prophetic feet

rested on a wooden stool; her oracular neck was bound with a

bright-colored shawl; her necromantic locomotive apparatus was

incased in a great number of predictive petticoats, and her

whole aspect was portentous. She is a woman who may be of any age

from 45 to 120, for her face is so oily that wrinkles won't stay

in it; they slip out and leave no trace. She is an unctuous

woman, with plenty of material in her--enough, in fact, for two or

three. She is adipose to a degree that makes her circumference

problematical, and her weight a mere matter of conjecture.

Moreover, one instantly feels that she is thoroughly water-proof,

and is certain that if she could be induced to shed tears, she

would weep lard oil.

Grim, grizzled, and stony-eyed, is this juicy old Sibyl; and she

glared fearfully on the hero with her fishy optics, until he

wished he hadn't done anything.

She was evidently just out of bed, although it was long past

noon, and when she yawned, which she did seven times a minute on

a low average, the effect was gloomy and cavernous, and the timid

delegate in search of the mysterious trembled in his boots.

At last, he with uncovered head and timid demeanor presented his

card entitling him to twelve shillings' worth of witchcraft, and

made an humble request to have it honored. He had previously,

while pretending to warm himself at the stove, been occupied in

making horrible grimaces at the baby, and then sketching it in

his hat as it disfigured its own face by frantic screams; and he

also took a quiet revenge on the pugnacious servant by making a

picture of her in a fighting attitude, with one eye bunged and

her jaw knocked round to her left ear.

When the ponderous Witch had got all ready for business, and had

taken a very long greasy stare at her customer, as if she was

making up her mind what sort of a customer on the whole he might

be, she determined to begin her mighty magic. So she took up the

cards, which were almost as greasy as she herself, and prepared

for business, previously giving one most tremendous yawn, which

opened her sacred jaws so wide that only a very narrow isthmus of

hair behind her ears connected the top of her respected head with

the back of her venerated neck.

She then presented the cards for her customer to cut, and when he

had accomplished that feat, which he did in some perturbation,

she ran them carelessly over between her fingers, and began to

speak very slowly, and without much thought of what she was

about, as if it was a lesson she had learned by heart.

Each word slipped smoothly out from her fat lips as if it had

been anointed with some patent lubricator, and her speech was as

follows:--

"You have seen much trouble, some of it in business, and some of

it in love, but there are brighter days in store for you before

long--you face up a letter--you face up love--you face up

marriage--you face up a light-haired woman, with dark eyes, you

think a great deal of her, and she thinks a great deal of you;

but then she faces up a dark complexioned man, which is bad for

you--you must take care and look out for him, for he is trying to

injure you--she likes you the best, but you must look out for the

man--you face up better luck in business, you face a change in

your business, but be careful, or it will not bring you much

money--you do not face up a great deal of money."

(Here followed a huge yawn which again nearly left the top of her

head an island.) Then she resumed, "If you will tell me the

number of letters in the lady's name, I will tell you what her

name is."

This demand was unexpected, but her cool and collected customer

replied at random, "Four." The she-Falstaff then referred to a

book wherein was written a long list of names, of varying lengths

from one syllable to six, and selecting the names with four

letters, began to ask.

"Is it Emma?" "No." "Anna?" "No." "Ella?" "No?" "Jane?" "No."

"Etta?" "No." "Lucy?" "No." "Cora?" "No." At last, finding that

she would run through all the four-letter names in the language,

and that he must eventually say something, he agreed to let his

"true love's" name be Mary. Then she continued her remarks: "You

face up Mary, you love Mary; Mary is a good girl. You will marry

Mary at last; but Mary is not now here--Mary is far away; but do

not fear, for you shall have Mary."

Then she proposed to tell the name of our reporter in the same

mysterious manner, and on being told that it contains eight

letters, the first of which is "M," she turned to her register

and again began to read. It so happens that the proper names

answering to the description are very few, and the right one did

not happen to be on her list; so in a short time the greasy

prophetess became confused, and slipped off the track entirely,

and after asking about two hundred names of various dimensions,

from Mark to Melchisedek, she gave it up in despair and glared on

her twelve-shilling patron as if she thought he was trifling with

her, and she would like to eat him up alive for his presumption.

Then she suddenly changed her mode of operation and made the

fearful remark: "Now you may wish three wishes, and I will tell

whether you will get them or not."

She then laid out the cards into three piles, and her visitor

stated his wishes aloud, and received the gratifying information

in three instalments, that he would live to be rich, to marry the

light-haired maiden, and to effectually smash the dark-complexioned man.

Then she said: "You may now wish one wish in secret, and I will

tell you whether you will get it." Our avaricious hero instantly

wished for an enormous amount of ready money, which she kindly

promised, but which he has not yet seen the color of.

He asked about his prospective wives and children, with

unsatisfactory results. One wife and four children was, she said,

the outside limit. At this juncture she began to wriggle uneasily

in her chair, and her considerate patron respected her "rheumatics"

and took his leave. This conference, although the results may be

read by a glib-tongued person in five minutes, occupied more than

three-quarters of an hour--Madame Prewster's diction being slow

and ponderous in proportion to her size.

He now prepared to depart, and with a parting contortion of his

countenance, of terrible malignity, at the unfortunate baby,

which caused that weird brat to fling itself flat on its back and

scream in agony of fear, he informed the Madame with mock

deference that he would not wait any longer. He was then attended

to the door by the bellicose maiden, who seemed to have fathomed

his deep dealings with the infuriate infant, and to be desirous

of giving him bloody battle in the hall, but as he had remarked

that she had a rolling-pin hidden under her apron, and as he was

somewhat awed by the sanguinary look of her dish-cloth, he choked

down his blood-thirstiness and ingloriously retreated.

CHAPTER III.

Wherein are related divers strange things of Madame Bruce, the

"Mysterious Veiled Lady," of No. 513 Broome Street.

CHAPTER III.

MADAME BRUCE, "THE MYSTERIOUS VEILED LADY," No. 513 BROOME

STREET.

The woman who assumes the title of "The Mysterious Veiled Lady,"

is much younger in the Black Art trade than Madame Prewster, and

has only been publicly known as a "Fortune-Teller" for about six

years. The mysterious veil is assumed partly for the very

mystery's sake, and partly to hide a countenance which some of

her visitors might desire to identify on after occasions. She

confines herself more exclusively to telling fortunes than do

many of the others, and has never yet made her appearance in a

Police Court to answer to an accusation of a grave crime. She has

many customers, and might have a respectable account at the bank

if she were disposed to commit her moneys to the care of those

careful institutions.

It may be mentioned here, however, as a curious fact, that

although all the "witches" profess to be able to "tell lucky

numbers," and will at any time give a paying customer the exact

figures which they are willing to prophesy will draw the capital

prize in any given lottery, their skill invariably fails them

when they undertake to do anything in the wheel-of-fortune way on

their own individual behalf. No one of the professional

fortune-tellers was ever known to draw a rich prize in a lottery,

or to make a particularly lucky "hit" on a policy number,

notwithstanding the fact that most of them make large investments

in those uncertain financial speculations. Madame Bruce is no

exception to this general rule, and the propinquity of the

"lottery agency" and the "policy-shop," just round the corner,

must be accepted in explanation of the fact that this gifted lady

has no balance in her favor at the banker's.

The quality of her magic and other interesting facts about her

are best set forth in the words of the anxious seeker after

hidden lore, who paid her a visit one pleasant afternoon in

August.

The "Individual" visits Madame Bruce and has a

Conference with that Mysterious Veiled Personage.

A man of strong nerves can recover from the effects of a

professional interview with the ponderous Prewster in about a

week; delicately organized persons, particularly susceptible to

supernatural influences, might be so overpowered by the

manifestations of her cabalistic lore as to affect their

appetites for a whole lunar month, and have bad dreams till the

moon changed; but the daring traveller of this veracious history

was convalescent in ten days. It is true, that, even after that

time, he, in his dreams, would imagine himself engaged in

protracted single combats with the heroine of the rolling-pin,

and once or twice awoke in an agony of fear, under the impression

that he had been worsted in the fight, and that the conquering

fair one was about to cook him in a steamer, or stew him into

charity soup, and season him strong with red pepper; or broil him

on a gridiron and serve him up on toast to Madame Prewster, like

a huge woodcock. In one gastronomic nightmare of a dream he even

fancied that the triumphant maiden had tied him, hand and foot,

with links of sausages, then tapped his head with an auger,

screwed a brass faucet into his helpless skull, and was preparing

to draw off his brains in small quantities to suit cannibalic

retail customers.

But he eventually recovered his equanimity, his nocturnal visions

of the warlike servant became less terrible, and he gradually

ceased to think of her, except with a dim sort of half-way

remembrance, as of some fearful danger, from which many years

before he had been miraculously preserved.

When he had reached this state of mind, he was ready to proceed

with his inquiries into the mysteries of the cheap and nasty

necromancy of the day, and to encounter the rest of the

fifty-cent Sybils with an unperturbed spirit. Accordingly, he

girded up his loins, and prepared the necessary amount of one

dollar bills; for, with a most politic and necessary carefulness,

he always made his own change.

[Note of caution to the future observer of these Modern Witches:

Never let one of them "break" a large bank-bill for you, and give

you small notes in exchange, lest the small bills be much more

badly broken than the large one. Not that the witches' money,

like the fairies' gold, will be likely to turn into chips and

pebbles in your pocket, but all these fortune-tellers are expert

passers of counterfeit and broken bank-notes and bogus coin; and

they never lose an opportunity thus to victimize a customer.]

Fortified with dinner, dessert, and cigars, the cash customer

departed on his voyage of discovery in search of "MADAME BRUCE,

THE MYSTERIOUS VEILED LADY," who carries on all the business she

can get by the subjoined advertisement:

"ASTONISHING TO ALL.-Madame BRUCE, the Mysterious

Veiled Lady, can be consulted on all events of life, at

No. 513 Broome st., one door from Thompson. She is a

second-sight seer, and was born with a natural gift."

The "Individual," modestly speaking of himself in the third

person, admits that, being then a single man of some respectability,

he was at that very period looking out for a profitable partner

of his bosom, sorrows, joys, and expenses. He naturally preferred

one who could do something towards taking a share of the

expensive responsibility of a family off his hands, and was not

disposed to object to one who was even afflicted with money;--next

to that woman, whom he had not yet discovered, a lady with a

"natural gift" for money-making was evidently the most eligible

of matrimonial speculations. Whether he really cherished an

humble hope that the veil of Madame Bruce might be of semi-transparent

stuff, and that she might discover and be smitten by his manly

charms, and ask his hand in marriage, and eventually bear him

away, a blushing husband, to the altar, or whatever might be

hastily substituted for that connubial convenience, will never be

officially known to the world. Certain it is that he expected

great results of some sort to eventuate from his visit to this

obnubilated prophetess, and that he paid extraordinary attention

to the decoration of the external homo, and to the administration

of encouraging stimuli to the inner individual, probably with a

view to submerge, for the time, his characteristic bashfulness,

before he set out to visit the fair inscrutable of Broome-street.

The nature of his secret cogitations, as he walked along, was

somewhat as follows, though he himself has never before revealed

the same to mortal man.

He was of course uncertain as to her personal attractiveness;

owing to that mysterious veil there was a doubt as to her

surpassing beauty. At any rate he did not regret the time spent

on his toilet.

Madame Bruce might be a lady of the most transcendent loveliness,

or she might possess a countenance after the style of Mokanna,

the Veiled Prophet; in either case, a clean shirt collar and a

little extra polish on the boots would be a touching tribute of

respect. He thought over the stories of the Oriental ladies, so

charmingly and complexly described in the "Arabian Nights'

Entertainments," and in some strange way he connected Madame

Bruce with Eastern associations; he remembered that in Asiatic

countries the arts of enchantment are the staple of fashionable

female education; that the women imbibe the elements of magic

from their wet nurses, and that their power of charming is

gradually and surely developed by years and competent instructors,

until they are able to go forth into the world, and raise the

devil on their own hook.

In this case the veil was of the East, Eastern; and what was more

probable than that the "Mysterious Veiled Lady" was that

fascinating Oriental young woman whose attainments in magic made

her the dire terror of her enemies, most of whom she changed into

pigs, and oxen, and monkeys, and other useful domestic animals;

who had transformed her unruly grandfather into a cat of the

species called Tom; had metamorphosed her vicious aunt into a

screech-owl, and had turned an ungentlemanly second-cousin into a

one-eyed donkey.

What a treasure, thought the "Individual," would such an

accomplished wife be in republican America,--how exceedingly

useful in the case of her husband's rivals for Custom-house

honors, and how invaluable when creditors become clamorous. What

a perfect treasure would a wife be who could turn a clamorous

butcher into spring lamb, and his brown apron and leather

breeches into the indispensable peas and mint-sauce to eat him

with; who could make the rascally baker instantly become a green

parrot with only power to say, "Pretty Polly wants a cracker;"

who could transform the dunning tailor into a greater goose than

any in his own shop; who could go to Stewart's, buy a couple of

thousands of dollars' worth of goods, and then turn the clerks

into cockroaches, and scrunch them with her little gaiter if they

interfered with her walking off with the plunder; or who, in the

event of a scarcity of money, could invite a select party of

fifty or sixty friends to a nice little dinner, and then change

the whole lot into lions, tigers, giraffes, elephants, and

ostriches, and sell the entire batch to Van Amburgh & Co. at a

high premium, as a freshly imported menagerie, all very fat and

valuable.

Then he came down from this rather elevated flight of fancy, and

filled away on another tack. Before he reached the house he had

fully made up his mind that Madame Bruce, the Mysterious Veiled

Lady, must be a stray Oriental Princess in reduced circumstances,

cruelly thrust from the paternal mansion by the infuriated

proprietor, her father, and compelled to seek her fortune in a

strange land. He had never seen a princess, and he resolved to

treat this one with all respect and loyal veneration; to do this,

if possible, without compromising his conscience as a republican

and a voter in the tenth ward,--but to do it at all hazards.

The immense fortune which would undoubtedly be hers in the event

of the relenting of her brutal though opulent father, suggested

the feasibility of a future elopement, and a legal marriage,

according to the forms of any country that she preferred--he

couldn't bethink him of a Persian justice of the peace, but he

did not despair of being able to manage it to her entire and

perfect satisfaction.

Her undoubted great misfortunes had touched his tender heart. He

would see this suffering Princess--he would tender his sympathy

and offer his hand and the fortune he hoped she would be able to

make for him. If this was haughtily declined there would still

remain the poor privilege of buying a dose of magic, paying the

price in current money, and letting her make her own change.

Having matured this disinterested resolve, he proceeded calmly on

his journey, wondering as he walked along, whether, in the event

of a gracious reception by his Princess, it would be more courtly

and correct to kneel on both knees, or to make an Oriental

cushion of his overcoat and sit down cross-legged on the floor.

This knotty point was not settled to his entire satisfaction when

he reached that lovely portion of fairy-land near the angle of

Broome and Thompson streets. The Princess had taken up her

temporary residence in the tenant-house No. 513 Broome, which,

elegant mansion affords a refuge to about seventeen other

families, mostly Hibernian, without very high pretensions to

aristocracy.

His ring at the door of the noble mansion was answered by a

grizzly woman speaking French very badly broken, in fact

irreparably fractured. This grizzly Gaul let him into the house,

heard his request to see Madame Bruce, and then she called to a

shock-headed boy who was looking over the bannisters, to come and

take the visitor in charge.

Two minutes' observation convinced the distinguished caller that

the servants of the Princess were not particular in the matter of

dirt.

The walls were stained, discolored, and bedaubed, and the floor

had a sufficient thickness of soil for a vegetable garden; at one

end of the hall, indeed, an Irish woman was on her knees, making

experimental excavations, possibly with a view to planting early

lettuce and peppergrass.

A glance at the shock-headed boy showed a peculiarity in his

visual organs; his eyes, which were black naturally, had

evidently suffered in some kind of a fisticuff demonstration, and

one of them still showed the marks; it was twice black, naturally

and artificially; it had a dual nigritude, and might, perhaps, be

called a double-barrelled black eye. This pleasant young man

conducted his visitor to the top of the first flight of stairs,

where he said, "Please stop here a minute," and disappeared into

the Princess's room, leaving her devoted slave alone in the hall

with two aged washtubs and a battered broom. There ensued an

immediate flurry in the rooms of the Princess, and the customer

thought of the forty black slaves, with jars of jewels on their

heads, who, in Oriental countries, are in the habit of receiving

princesses' visitors with all the honors. He hardly thought to

see the forty black slaves, with the jars of gems, but rather

expected the shock-headed youth to presently reappear, with a mug

of rubies, or a kettle of sapphires and emeralds, and invite him

in courtly language to help himself to a few--or, that that active

young man would presently come out with an amethyst snuff-box

full of diamond-dust and ask him to take a pinch, and then

present him with that expensive article as a slight token of

respect from the Princess.

"Not so, not so, my child."

The great shuffling and pitching about of things continued, as if

the furniture had been indulging in an extemporaneous jig, and

couldn't stop on so short a notice, or else objected to any

interruption of the festivities.

Finally the rattling of chairs and tables subsided into a calm,

and the boy reappeared. He came, however, without the tea-kettle

full of valuables, and minus even the snuff-box; he merely

remarked, with an insinuating wink of the lightest-colored eye,

"Please to walk this way."

It _did_ please his auditor to walk in the designated direction,

and he entered the room, when the eye spoke again to a very low

accompaniment of the voice, as if he was afraid he might damage

that organ by playing on it too loudly.

The anxious visitor looked for the Princess, but not seeing her,

or the slaves with the pots of jewels, and observing, also, that

the chairs were not too luxuriously gorgeous for people to sit

on, he sat down.

A single glance convinced him that the Princess could have had no

opportunity to carry off her jewels from her eastern home, or

that she must have spent the proceeds before she furnished her

present domicile. An iron bedstead, a small cooking-stove, four

chairs, and a table, on which the breakfast crockery stood

unwashed, was the amount of the furniture. A dirty slatternly

young woman of about twenty-three years, with filthy hands and

uncombed hair, and whose clothes looked as if they had been

tossed on with a pitchfork, seated herself in one of the chairs

and commenced conversation--not in Persian. It was one o'clock,

P.M., but she attempted an apology for the unmade bed, the

unswept room, the unwashed breakfast dishes, and the untidy

appearance of everything. Before she had concluded her fruitless

explanation, the boy with the variegated eye suddenly came from

a closet which the customer had not noticed and was unprepared

for, and said, in winning tones, "Please to walk in this room,"

which was done, with some fear and no little trembling, whereupon

the optical youth incontinently vanished.

At last, then, the imaginative visitor stood in the presence of

royalty, and beheld the wronged Princess of his heart. He was

about to drop on his bended knees to pay his premeditated homage,

but a hurried glance at the floor showed that such a course of

proceeding would result in the ineffaceable soiling of his best

pantaloons; so he stood sturdily erect.

Before he suffered his eyes to rest upon the peerless beauty who,

he was convinced, stood before him, he took a survey of the regal

apartment.

An unpainted pine table stood in the corner, a gaudily colored

shade was at the window, and an iron single bedstead upon which

the clothes had been hastily "spread up," and two chairs, on one

of which sat the enchantress, completed the list.

The Princess was attired in deep black, and a thick black veil,

reaching from her head to her waist, entirely concealed her

features from the beholders who still devoutly believed in her

royal birth and cruel misfortunes--nor was this belief dissipated

until she spoke; but when she called "Pete" to the double-barrelled

youth with the eye, and gave him a "blowing up" in the most

emphatic kind of English for not bringing her pocket-handkerchief,

then the beautiful Princess of his imagination vanished into the

thinnest kind of air, and there remained only the unromantic

reality of a very vulgar woman, in a very dirty dress, and who

had a very bad cold in her head. There was still a hope that she

might be pretty, and her would-be admirer fervently trusted that

she might be compelled to lift her veil to blow her nose, but she

didn't do it. Then he offered her his hand, not in marriage, but

for her to read his fortune in, and stood, no longer trembling

with expectation, but with stony indifference, for as he

approached her, a strong odor of an onion-laden breath from

beneath the veil, gave the death-blow to the fair creature of his

imagination, and convinced him that he had got the wrong ----

Princess by the fist. She looked at him closely for a couple of

minutes, and then spoke these words--the peculiar pronunciation

being probably induced by the cold in her head.

"You are a badd who has saw a great beddy chadges add it seebs

here as if you was goidg to be bore settled in the future--it

seebs here like as if you had sobetibes in your life beed very

buch cast dowd, but it seebs here like as if you had always got

up agaid.--It seebs here like as if you had saw id your past life

sobe lady what you liked very buch add had beed disappointed--it

seebs here like as if there was two barriages for you, wud id a

very short tibe--wud lady seebs here to stadd very dear to you,

add you two bay be barried or you bay dot--if you are dot already

barried you will be very sood--it seebs here as if you woulddt

have a very large fabily--five childred will be all that you will

have--you will have a good deal of buddy (money) id your life--sobe

of your relatives what you dever have saw will sood die add leave

you sobe property--but you will dot be expectidg it add it seebs

here as if you would have trouble id getting it, for there will

sobe wud else try to get it away frob you--it seebs as if the lady

you will barry will dot be too dark cobplexiod, dor yet too

light--dot too tall, dor yet very short, dot too large, dor too

thid--she thidks a great deal of you, bore thad you do of her,--you

have already saw her id the course of your life, and she loves

you very buch. There are people about you id your busidess who

are dot so buch your friends as they preted to be--you are goidg

to bake sub chadge id your busidess, it will be a good thidg for

you add will cub out buch better thad you expect."

Here she stopped and intimated that she would answer any

questions that her customer desired to ask, and in reply to his

interrogatories the following important information was elicited:

"You will be lodg lived, add you will have two wives, add will

live beddy years with your first wife."

The "Individual" proclaimed himself satisfied, and paid his

money, whereupon Madame Bruce instantly yelled "Pete," when the

Eye-Boy reappeared to show the door, and the Cash Customer

departed, leaving the Mysterious Veiled Lady shivering on her

stool, and exceedingly desirous of an opportunity to use her

pocket-handkerchief.

And this is all there was of the Persian Princess. As the seeker

after wisdom went away he made one single audible remark by way

of consoling himself for his crushed hopes and blighted anonymous

love. It was to this effect. "I believe she squints, and I _know_

she's got bad teeth."

CHAPTER IV.

Relates the marvellous performances of Madame Widger, of No. 3,

First Avenue, and how she looks into the future through a

Paving-Stone.

CHAPTER IV.

MADAME WIDGER, No. 3 FIRST AVENUE.

Madame Widger came from Albany to this city about four years ago,

and at once set up as an "Astrologer." She has been a "witch" for

a great many years, and has, directly and indirectly, done about

as much mischief as it is possible for one person to accomplish

in the same length of time. She was a woman of great repute in

and about Albany, as a fortune-teller, and was supposed to be

conversant with practices more criminal. She at last became so

well known as a bad woman, that she found it advisable to leave

Albany, after she had settled certain lawsuits in which she had

become entangled.

Among other speculations of hers, in that place, she once sued

the city to recover indemnifying moneys for certain imaginary

damages, alleged to have been done to her property by the

unbidden entrance of the river into her private apartments,

during one of the periodical inundations with which Albany is

favored. By the shrewd management of certain of her lawyer

friends with whom she had business dealings, she at last got a

judgment against the city, but, owing to some other awkward law

complications, it became expedient to change her place of

residence before she had collected her money, and the amount

remains unpaid to this day.

She then came to this city, and set up in the Sorceress way, and,

by dint of advertising, she soon got a good many customers. She

now has as much to do as she can easily manage to get along with,

is making a good deal of money by "Astrology," and by other more

unscrupulous means; and she is probably worth some considerable

property. She is a bold, brazen, ignorant, unscrupulous,

dangerous woman. She has some peculiar ways of her own in telling

the fortunes of her visitors, and is the only person in the city

who professes to read the future through a magic stone, or

"second-sight pebble." Her manner of using this wonderful

geological specimen is fully described hereafter.

The "Individual" Visits a Grim Witch, who reads his

Future through a Moderate-Sized Paving-Stone.

Disappointed in his fond hope of discovering, in the person of

Madame Bruce, an eligible partner, who should bridal him and lead

him coyly to the altar, that bourne from which no bachelor

returns, the Cash Customer was for many days downcast in his

demeanor and neglectful of his person. When he eventually

recovered from his strong attack of Madame Bruce, he was not by

any means cured of his romantic desire to procure a witch wife.

He had carefully figured up the conveniences of such an article,

and the sum total was an irresistible argument.

If he could win a witch of the right sort, perhaps she could

teach him the secret of the Philosopher's Stone, and the Elixir

of Life, and show him the locality of the Fountain of Youth, so

that he could take the wrinkles out of himself and his friends,

at the cost of only a short journey by rail-road. A barrel or so

of that wonderful water, peddled out by the bottle, would meet a

readier sale and pay a larger profit than any Paphian Lotion that

was ever advertised on the rocks of Jersey. All this, to say

nothing of a family of young wizards and sorcerers, who could, by

virtue of the maternal magic, swallow swords from the day of

their birth, do mighty feats of legerdemain, such as cutting off

the heads of innumerable pigs and chickens, and producing the

decapitated animals alive again from the coat-tails of the

bystanders, to the astonishment of the crowd and the great

emolument of their proud dad. Even if these profitable babies

should not be natural necromancers, with the power of second

sight, and any quantity of "natural gifts," they must surely be

spirit-rappers of the most lucrative "sphere," capable of

organizing "circles," and instructing "mediums," and otherwise

bringing into the family fund large piles of that circulating

medium so much to be desired. Or, even failing this popular

gift, they _must_ all be born with some strong instincts of

money-making vagabondism. If the girls failed in fortune-telling

they would certainly have a genius for the tight-rope, or a

decided talent for the female circus and negro-minstrel business;

and the boys would be brought into the world with the power of

throwing a miraculous number of consecutive flip-flaps--of putting

cocked hats on their juvenile heads while turning somersets over

long rows of Arab steeds of the desert--of poising their infant

bodies on pyramids of bottles, and drinking glasses of molasses

and water, under the contemptible subterfuge of wine, to the

health of the terror-stricken beholders--or of climbing to the

tops of very tall poles without soiling their spangled dresses,

and there displaying their anatomy for the admiration of the

gazing multitude, in divers attitudes, for the most part

extraordinarily wrong side up with very particular care--or, at

least, they would be born with the astounding gift of tying their

young legs in double bow-knots across the backs of their

adolescent necks, and while in that graceful position kissing

their little fingers to the bewildered audience.

Under the constant influence of such comfortable and ennobling

thoughts, it is not in the elastic nature of the human mind to

remain long dejected. In the contemplation of the future glories

of his might-be wife and possible family, the "Individual"

recovered somewhat of his former gaiety. Remembering that "Care

killed a cat," he resolved that he would not be chronicled as a

second victim, so he kicked Care out of doors, so to speak, and

warned Despair and Discouragement off the premises.

He attired him in his best, and appeared once more before the

world in the joyful garb of a man with Hope in his heart and

money in his pantaloons. In fact, so radiant did he appear, that

he might have been set down for a person who had just had a new

main of joy laid on in his heart, and had turned the cocks of all

the pipes, and let on the full head just to see how the new

apparatus worked. Or, as if he'd been in a shower-bath of

good-nature, and come out dripping.

He also took kindly to that innocuous beverage, lager bier, which

was a good sign in itself, inasmuch as he had, for a few days,

been drinking as many varieties of strong drinks, as if he'd been

brought up on Professor Anderson's Inexhaustible Bottle, and had

never overcome the influences of his infant education.

Seeking out a friend to whom he confided his hopes of a lucrative

wife and a profitable progeny, the Cash Customer suggested that

they proceed immediately in search of the fair enchantress who

was to be his comfort and consolation, for the rest of his

respectable life.

Being somewhat disgusted with the result of his visit to the

witch with the romantic designation of the "Mysterious Veiled

Lady," he had determined to seek out one on this occasion with

the most common-place and every-day cognomen, in the whole list.

There being a Madame Widger in that delightful catalogue, of

course Widger was the one selected. It is true, she sometimes

advertised herself as the "Mysterious Spanish Lady," but in the

judgment of the Individual, the Widger was too much for the

Spanish and the mystery.

So Madame Widger was resolved on. Her modest advertisement is

given, that the impartial reader may be brought to acknowledge

that the inducements to wed the Widger were not of the common

order.

"MADAME WIDGER, the Natural-Gifted Astrologist,

Second-Sight Seer and Doctress, tells past, present,

and future events; love, courtship, marriage, absent

friends, sickness; prescribes medicines for all

diseases, property lost or stolen, at No. 3 First-av.,

near Houston-st."

The slight lack of perspicuity in this announcement seems to be a

mysterious peculiarity, common to all the Fortune Tellers, as if

they were all imbued with the same commendable contempt for all

the rules of English grammar.

The voyager being attired in a captivating costume, and being

also provided with pencils and paper to make a life-sketch, with

a view to an expansive portrait of his enslaver, whose beauty was

with him a foregone conclusion, set out with his faithful friend

for the delightful locality mentioned in the advertisement, where

the charming Circe, Widger, held her magic court.

He was not aware, at that time, that his intended bride was not a

blushing blooming maiden, but an ancient dame, whose very

wrinkles date back into the eighteenth century. But of that

hereafter.

He was determined to have her tell his "love, courtship, or

marriage, absent friends, or sickness," and to insist that she

should "prescribe medicines for property lost or stolen,"

according to the exact wording of the advertisement.

The doughty "Individual" trembled somewhat, with an undefined

sensation of awe, as though some fearful ordeal was before him--to

use his own elegant and forcible language, he felt as though he

was going to encounter an earthquake with volcano trimmings.

"It is the fluttering of new-born love in your manly bosom,"

remarked his companion.

"Well," was the reply, "if a baby love kicks so very like a horse

of vicious propensities, a full-grown Cupid would be so

unmanageable as to defy the very Rarey and all his works."

Without any noteworthy adventure they kept on their way to the

First Avenue, and in due time stood, awe-struck, before the

mansion of the enchantress.

After the first impression had worn off, the scene was somewhat

stripped of its mysteriousness, and assumed an aspect commonplace,

not to say seedy. As soon as the sense of bewilderment with which

they at first gazed upon the domicile of the mysterious damsel so

favored of the fates, had passed away, they found themselves in a

condition to make the observations of the place and its

surroundings that are detailed below.

The house, a three-story brick, seemed to have that architectural

disease which is a perpetual epidemic among the tenant-houses of

the city, and which makes them look as if they had all been

dipped in a strong solution of something that had taken the skin

off. The paint was blistered and peeling off in flakes; the

blinds were hanging cornerwise by solitary hinges; the shingles

were starting from their places with a strange air of disquietude,

as if some mighty hand had stroked them the wrong way; the

door-steps were shaky and crazy in the knees; the door itself had

a curious air of debility and emaciation, and the bell-knob was

too weak to return to its place after it had feebly done its

brazen duty. There was no door-plate, but on a battered tin sign

was blazoned, in fat letters, the mystic word "Widger." The Cash

Customer rang the bell, not once merely, or twice, but continuously,

in pursuance of a dogma which he laid down as follows:

"It is a mistake to ever stop ringing till somebody comes. The

feebler you ring, the more the servants think you're a dun, and

therefore the more they don't come to let you in--but if you keep

it up regularly they'll think you're a rich relation and will

rush to the rescue."

So he kept on, and the voice of the bell sharply clattered

through the dismal old house, making as much noise as if it

suddenly wakened a thousand echoes that had been locked up there

for many years without the power to speak till now. If a timid

ring denotes a dun, and a boisterous one a rich relation, then

must the inhabitants of that cleanly suburb have been convinced

that the present performer on the bell not only had no claims as

a creditor on the people of the house, but was a rich California

uncle, come to give each adult member of that happy family a gold

mine or so, and to distribute a cart-load of diamonds among the

children.

The door at last was opened by an uncertain old man with very

weak eyes, who appeared to have, in a milder form, the same

malady which afflicted the house; perhaps he was a twin, and

suffered from brotherly sympathy--at any rate the dilapidating

disease had touched him sorely; its ravages were particularly

noticeable in the toes of his boots and the elbows of his coat.

Violent remedies had evidently been applied in the latter case,

but the patches were of different colors, and suggestive of the

rag-bag; the boots were past hope of convalescence; his

shirt-collar was sunk under a greasy billow of a neckcloth, and

only one slender string was visible to show where it had gone

down; the nether garment was a ragged wreck, that set a hundred

tattered sails to every breeze, but was anchored fast at the

shoulder with a single disreputable suspender.

Guided by this equivocal individual the two visitors entered a

small shabbily furnished room, and bestowed themselves in a

couple of treacherous chairs, in pursuance of an imbecile

invitation from the battered old gentleman.

The anticipations of the enthusiastic lover again began to fall,

and in five minutes his heart, which so lately was "burning with

high hope," was so cold as to be uncomfortable.

On a seven-by-nine cooking-stove, which three pints of coal would

have driven blazing crazy, stood a diminutive iron kettle, in

which something was noisily stewing; the something may have been

a decoction of magic herbs, or it may have been Madame Widger's

dinner. A tumble-down trunk in a corner of the room did

precarious duty for a chair; a faded carpet hid the floor; a

cheap rocking-chair in the act of moulting its upholstery spread

its luxurious arms invitingly near the dim window; and a table,

on which a pack of German playing cards was coyly half concealed

by a newspaper, a coal-hod, and a poker, completed the necessary

furnishing of the apartment.

The ornaments are soon inventoried; a certificate of membership

of the New York State Agricultural Society, given at Albany to

Mr. M. G. Bivins, hung in a cheap frame over the table. The other

decorations were a few prints of high-colored saints, an

engraving of a purple Virgin Mary with a pea-green child, and a

picture of a blue Joseph being sold by yellow brethren to a crowd

of scarlet merchants who were paying for him with money that

looked like peppermint lozenges.

Madame Widger, the "Mysterious Spanish Lady," was not at first

visible to the naked eye, but a loud, shrill, vicious voice,

which made itself heard through the partition dividing the

reception-room from some apartment as yet unexplored by them,

directed the attention of her visitors to her exact locality.

She was "engaged" with another gentleman, said the knight of the

ragged inexpressibles.

Had not what he had already seen of the mansion decidedly cooled

the passion of the love-lorn customer, this intelligence would

have been likely to rouse his ire against the interloping swain,

and make him pant for vengeance and fistic damages to the other

party; but in his present confused state of mind he received this

blow with philosophic indifference.

The old man subsided into a chair, and in a weak sort of way

began to talk, evidently with some insane idea of pleasingly

filling up the time until the prophetess should be disengaged.

His conversation seemed to run to disasters, with a particular

partiality to shipwrecks. He accordingly detailed, with wonderful

exactness, the perils encountered by a certain canal-boat of

his, "loaded principally with butter and cheese," during a

dangerous voyage from Albany to New York, and which was finally

brought safely to a secure harbor by the power of the Widger,

which circumstance had made him her slave for life.

The shrill voice then ceased, and the person to whom it had been

addressed came forth. The lime on his blue jean garments, and the

cloudy appearance of his boots, declared him to be something in

the mason line. He deported himself with becoming reverence, and

departed in apparent awe. He did not look like a dangerous rival,

and he was not molested.

A discreditable and disordered head now thrust itself out of the

mysterious closet, opened its mouth, and the vicious voice said:

"I will see you now, sir." The sighing swain, with a fluttering

heart and unsteady steps, summoned his courage and entered the

place, to him as mysterious as was Bluebeard's golden-keyed

closet to his ninth wife. The first glance at Madame Widger at

once scattered again all his dreams of love and of happiness

with that potent and fearful female.

He encountered a cadaverous bony-looking woman, very tall, very

old, though with hair still black; with grey eyes, and false

gleaming teeth. She was attired in calico; quality, ten cents a

yard; appearance, dirty. Hardly was the door closed, when the

vicious voice spitefully remarked, "Sit down, sir;" and a skinny

finger pointed to a cane-bottomed chair. While seating himself

and taking off his gloves, he took an observation.

The apartment was not large; in an unfurnished state, a

moderately-hooped belle might have stood in it without serious

damage to her outskirts, but there would be little extra room for

any enterprising adventurer to circumnavigate her. In one corner

was a small pine light-stand, on which was a sceptical looking

Bible, with a very black brass key tied in it; a volume of Cowper

bound in full calf; a little lamp with a single lighted wick, and

a pile of the Madame's business hand-bills.

She at once showed her experience of human nature and her distrust

of her present visitor by her practical and matter-of-fact conduct.

She sat uncomfortably down on the very edge of an angular chair,

folded her hands, shut herself half up like a jack-knife, and the

vicious voice mentioned this fearful fact: "My terms are a dollar

for gentlemen;" and the grey eyes stonily stared until the dollar

aforesaid was produced.

The voice then prepared for business by sundry "Ahems!" and when

fairly in working order it proceeded: "Give me your hand--your

_left_ hand."

The Widger took the extended palm in her shrivelled fingers and

made four rapid dabs in the middle of it with the forefinger of

her other hand, as if she were scornfully pointing out defects in

its workmanship; then she opened the drawer of the little stand

with a spiteful jerk, and withdrew thence something which she put

to her sinister optic, and began rapidly screwing it round with

both hands, as if she had got water on the brain and was trying

to tap herself in the eye.

Then the vicious voice began, in a loud mechanical manner, to

speak with the greatest volubility, running the sentences

together, and not thinking of a comma or a period till her breath

was exhausted, in a manner that would have fairly distanced Susan

Nipper herself, even if that rapid young lady had twenty seconds

the start.

"I see by looking in this stone that you was born under two

planets one is the planet Mars you will die under the planet

Jupiter but it won't be this year or next you have seen a great

deal of trouble and misfortune in your past life but better days

are surely in store for you you have passed through many things

which if written in a book would make a most interesting volume I

see by looking more closely in the stone that you are about to

receive two letters one a business letter the other a let--"

Here her breath failed, and as soon as it came back the voice

continued--

"ter from a friend it is written very closely and is crossed I

see by looking more closely in the stone that one of the letters

will contain news which will distress you exceedingly for a

little while but you need not be troubled for it will all be for

your good you are soon to have an interview with a man of light

hair and blue eyes who will profess great interest in you but he

will get the advantage of you if he can you must beware of him I

see by looking more closely in the stone that you will live to be

68 years old but you will die before you are 70." Here was

another station where the locomotive voice stopped to take in

air, and then instantly dashed ahead at a greater speed than

ever. "I see by looking more closely in the stone that good luck

will befall you a near friend will die and leave you a fortune I

see by looking more closely in the stone that this will happen to

you when you are between 32 and 34 years old that is all I see in

this stone."

Another grab brought from the little drawer another pebble,

which the Madame placed at her eye, the boring operation was

recommenced, and the vicious voice once more got up steam.

"I see by looking closely in this stone that you will have two

wives one will be blue-eyed and the other will be black-eyed with

the first one you will not live long but with the last one you

will be happy many years I see by looking more closely in the

stone that you will have six children which will be very

comfortable the lady who is to be your first wife is at this

moment thinking of you I see by looking more closely in the stone

that a man with light hair and blue eyes is trying to get her

away from you but she scorns him and turns away I see by looking

more closely in the stone that she has a strong feeling for you

you need not fear the man with light hair and blue eyes for you

will get her you and you only will possess her heart I see by

looking more closely in the stone that she is good gentle kind

loving affectionate true-hearted and pleasant."

(The vicious voice resented each one of these good-natured

adjectives, as if it had been a gross personal insult to the

Widger, and spit them spitefully at her trembling customer, as if

they tasted badly in her mouth.)

"and will make you a good wife; you will be rich and happy you

will be successful in business you will be hereafter always lucky

you will be distinguished you will be eminent you will be good

you will be respected you will be beloved honored cherished and

will reach a good old age I see by looking in this stone--that is

all I see by looking in this stone."

Here she ceased, and choking down her indignation, which had

risen to a fearful pitch during the complimentary peroration, she

said, taking up the equivocal Bible with the key tied in it,

"Take hold of the key with your finger, I will give you one wish,

if the book turns round you will have your wish." The guest took

the key in the required manner, and the Widger closed her eyes

and muttered something which may have been either a prayer or a

recipe for pickling red cabbage, for he was unable to satisfy

himself with any degree of certainty what it was; at the

appointed time the book turned and the wish was therefore

graciously granted.

Her hearer smiled his grimmest smile, and ventured to inquire if

his unknown rival was making any progress in securing the

affections of the lady in dispute, and received the satisfying

answer, "She scorns him and turns away." Reassured by this, the

susceptible individual mentally and fiercely defied the blue-eyed

intruder to do his worst, and with a reverential obeisance left

the presence. As he departed, the skinny hand presented him with

a handbill, but the vicious voice was silent.

Carefully conning the handbill as they slowly departed from the

august realm of the Madame, the seekers of magic for the lowest

cash price read the following particulars:

"Madame Widger was born with this wonderful gift of

revealing the destinies of man, and she has revealed

mysteries that no mortal knew. She states that she

advertises nothing but what she can do with entire

satisfaction to all who wish to consult her.

"Also, she will scan aright,

Dreams and visions of the night."

The tender inquirer went away in a desponding mood. The Widger

was out of the question as a bride, "for she was old enough," he

said, "to have been grandmother to his father's uncle."

CHAPTER V.

Discourses of Mrs. Pugh, of No. 102 South First Street,

Williamsburgh, and tells all that Nursing Sorceress communicated

to her Cash Customer.

CHAPTER V.

MRS. PUGH, No. 102 SOUTH FIRST STREET, WILLIAMSBURGH.

It is travelling a little away from home to go to Williamsburgh

in search of a witch, but there are some peculiar circumstances

about the present case, that give it more than common interest.

Mrs. Pugh is not an _advertising_ sorceress, but practises all

her magic slily, and generally under a promise of secresy, which

is exacted lest the fame of her fortune-telling should come to

the ears of certain respectable families, who employ her as a

nurse. She is much resorted to by a number of young persons of

both sexes, and has considerable notoriety among the low and

ignorant classes as a practiser of the black art. She is by no

means the only "nurse" who is given to this reprehensible

practice, but very many of the old women who officiate as

professional nurses are proficients in telling fortunes with

cards, and with the Bible and key, and are always glad of an

opportunity to exhibit their pretended skill. Being at times

received into families where there are daughters, not grown up,

they become most dangerous persons if they are encouraged or

permitted to thus practise on the credulity of these young girls.

The mere encouragement of hurtful superstitious notions is a

great ill in itself, but is by no means the extent of the evil

done by some of these persons. They not unfrequently take an

active part in bringing about meetings between unsuspecting girls

and evil-disposed men, thus paving the way to the wretchedness

and ruin of the former. More than one instance is known, where

the going astray of a loved daughter can be traced directly to

the mischievous teachings of a fortune-telling nurse.

These are the reasons that give the case of Mrs. Pugh an

importance greater than attaches to many others.

It is right that people should know that a certain degree of

circumspection ought to be used, with regard to moral character,

as well as other qualifications, in the selection of a nurse,

lest a person be employed who will work irreparable mischief

among the younger members of the family.

The Individual calls on a Nursing Sorceress.

Who shall say that broomstick locomotion is a lost art, and that

steam has superseded magic in the matter of travelling? Because

no one of us has ever encountered a witch on her basswood steed,

shall we presume to assert that witches no longer bestride

basswood steeds and make their nocturnal excursions to blasted

heaths, there to meet the devil in the social midnight orgie, and

kick up their withered heels in the gay diabolical dance with

other ancient females of like kidney with themselves? Because no

one of us has ever beheld with his own personal optics, an old

woman change herself into a black cat, shall we therefore assert

that the ancient dames of our own day are unable to accomplish

that feline transformation? "Not by no manner of means whatsomdever,"

as Mr. Weller would remark.

Let us not then be found without charity for the peculiar and

persistent faith of the hero of this book, who, though thrice

bitterly disappointed in his matrimonial speculations among the

witches, still clung to the fond belief that a bride with

supernatural powers of doing things would be a splendid

speculation, and that such a spouse could be found if he, her

ardent lover, did not give up the chase too soon. Spite of his

disappointment with Madame Bruce, and his crushing discomfiture

with Madame Widger, Hope still sprang eternal in the "Individual's"

breast, and he felt, like the immortal Mr. Brown of classic

verse, that it would "never do to give it up so."

He had something of a natural turn for mechanics, and having been

of late engaged in some entertaining speculations on steam

engines, he came not unnaturally to think of the wonderful

advantage the magically-endowed people of old had over the

present age in the matter of locomotion. He thought of that

wonderful carpet on which a jolly little party had but to seat

themselves and wish to be transported to any far-off spot, and

presto! change! there they were instanter. No collisions to be

feared; no running off the track at a speed of ever-so-many

unaccountable miles an hour; no cast-iron-voiced conductor at

short intervals demanding tickets; no old women with sour babies;

no obtrusive boys with double-priced books and magazines; no

other boys with peanuts, apples, and pop-corn; nothing, in fact,

save one's own social circle but a civil genie, not of Irish

extraction, to fly alongside to mix the juleps and carry the

morning paper.

It was very natural to consider whether there wasn't a yard or

two left somewhere of that valuable carpet, and to regret that on

the whole probably the original owners had occasion to use the

entire piece.

Then the thought was very naturally suggested of the marvellous

wooden horse with the pegs in his neck, who soared with his

riders a great deal higher than does Mr. Wise in his clumsy

balloon, and always came down a great deal easier than ever Mr.

Wise did yet. Of course the Cash Customer was from the start

perfectly convinced that _that_ breed of horses is long since

extinct, so long ago that no record of them is now to be found in

either the "American Racing Calendar," or the "English Stud

Book."

Then very naturally came thoughts of the broomstick changes of

the more modern witches. Perhaps, he thought, these are the colts

of the wooden horse, degenerate, it is true, and lacking in the

grace and symmetry of their extraordinary sire, but still perhaps

not inferior in speed or in safety of carriage.

The thought was a brilliant one, and it was really worth while to

inquire into the matter and pursue this phantom steed until he

was fairly hunted down and bridled ready for use.

It needed no long cogitation or extended argument to convince

Johannes, the "Individual," the Cash Customer, of the immense

practical value of such a steed, to say nothing of his costing

nothing to keep, and of its therefore being utterly impossible

for him to "eat his own head off," and of his never growing old,

and of his never having any of the multitudinous diseases that

afflict ordinary horses without any intermixture of magic blood,

and therefore of it being out of the question for anybody to

cheat his owner in a horse-trade.

Why, only think of his value for livery purposes in case his

happy proprietor was disposed to let other folks use him for a

proper compensation. He could of course be trained to carry

double, and no doubt Mr. Rarey, or some other person potent in

horse education, could easily break him to go in harness.

It wasn't likely, Johannes cogitated, that the judges would allow

him to enter his ligneous racer at the Fashion Course, so that

he'd not get a chance to win any money from Lancet and Flora

Temple, still there was a hope, even on that point.

So, in search of the witch wife, whose dower should be the

broomstick horse, that should set the fond couple up in business,

started the sanguine lover.

Having had some experience of New York fortune-tellers and others

in the magic line, and not thinking they were of the sort likely

to have so great a treasure, he started for the suburbs, and

crossed the ferry to Williamsburgh, in order to pay a visit of

inquiry, and if possible to take the initiatory step in courting

Mrs. Pugh, of No. 102 South First Street, in that city.

He designed, of course, to buy a "fortune" at a liberal price,

for the purpose of setting the lady in good-humor as a necessary

preliminary step. He really had hopes that she would prove to be

of a slightly different style from some of the New York

fortune-tellers, who seem to have mistaken their profession and

to be hardly up to reading the stars with success, although they

might be fully equal to all the financial exigencies of an apple

and peanut stand, or might win an honorable distinction crying

"radishes and lettuce" in the early morning hours; or upon trial,

might, perhaps, evince a decided genius for the rag-picking

business, or preside over the fortunes of a soap-fat cart with

distinguished ability.

Threading the winding ways of Williamsburgh is by no means an

easy task for one unaccustomed, and it was only by incessantly

stopping the passers-by and making the most minute inquiries that

this lady was ever achieved at all.

This constant questioning of the public revealed, however, the

fact that Mrs. Pugh does not by any means depend upon her

fortune-telling for her bread-and-butter; she is a nurse, as many

a Williamsburgh baby could testify if it could command its

emotions long enough to speak. What will be the influence of her

supernaturalism and witchcraft upon the children intrusted to her

fostering care--whether they will in after life prove to be

devils, demi-gods, heroes, or mere ordinary "humans," time alone

can show. This illustrious lady does not advertise in the

newspapers; in fact, her fortune-telling is done on the sly, as

if she were yet an apprentice, and a little ashamed of her

bungling jobs, for which, by the way, she only charges half

price. She is in a very undecided state, and evidently undetermined

whether her proper vocation is tending babies or revealing the

decrees of the fates at twenty-five cents a head, and when her

visitors made their appearance she was puzzled to know whether

their business was baby or black art.

Her exertions in either profession have not as yet gained her a

very large fortune, judging from the surroundings of her eligible

residence.

The domicile of this chrysalis enchantress is a low frame house

of two stories, standing back from the street, directly in the

rear of another row of more pretentious mansions, as if it had

been sent into the back yard in disgrace and never permitted to

show itself in good society again. It seems conscious of its

humiliation, and wears an air of architectural dejection that is

quite touching. A troop of dirty-faced children was in the yard,

and in the corner was a pile of other household incumbrances,

consisting principally of mops and washtubs.

Johannes critically examined this interesting collection, but the

wished-for broomstick was not there. A modest rap brought to the

door a large ill-favored man with a red nose and a ponderous pair

of boots, whose speciality seemed to be drinking whatever

spirituous liquors were consumed about the establishment.

Having passed this shirt-sleeved sentinel without damage, though

not without fear, the Cash Customer sat down to take an

observation.

The wooden courser was not to be seen at first glance. The room

was a small irregularly-shaped one, with an intrusive chimney

jutting out into the floor from one side, as if it were a sturdy

brick-and-mortar poor relation of the premises come a visiting

and not to be got rid of at any price. A small cooking-stove was

in the fireplace, with an attendant on either side in the shape

of a battered coal-scuttle, and a small saucepan full of

charcoal; the floor was covered with a dirty rag carpet that had

long since outlived its beauty and its usefulness, and was now in

the last extremity of a tattered old age; half-a-dozen chairs of

different patterns, all much shattered in health and enfeebled by

long years of labor, and a decrepit lounge in the last stages of

a decline, were the seats reserved for visitors; the other

furniture of the room was an antique chest of drawers of a most

curious and complicated pattern--it seemed as if the mechanic had

been uncertain whether he was to construct a bureau or a

cow-shed, and had accordingly satisfied his conscience by making

half-a-dozen drawers and building a sloping roof over them; the

joints were warped apart, and through the chinks could be seen

fragments of clean shirt, and ends of lace, and bits of flannel,

suggesting babies. At a wink from the female, the male with the

ponderous boots retired from the presence.

Mrs. Pugh is a woman of medium height and size, with a clear

grey eye, and light hair, and wearing that sycophantic smile

peculiar to people who have much to do with ugly babies whose

beauty must be constantly praised to the doting parents. She was

attired in a neat calico dress, constructed for family use, and

for the particular accommodation of the younger members of the

household.

Johannes, who had been taking a sly look, had made up his mind

that she would not be quite so objectionable for a wife as he had

feared, and he had fully resolved to woo and wed her off-hand,

provided she had the broomstick of his hopes.

So, by way of a beginning, he announced that he would like her to

exercise her magic powers in his behalf.

Mrs. Pugh had evidently previously regarded him as an

enthusiastic young father with a pair of troublesome twins, who

had come to seek her ministrations, and she undoubtedly had high

wages, innumerable presents, and exorbitant perquisites in her

mind's eye at that instant.

When, however, she learned that her visitor merely wished to know

what the fates had resolved to do about his particular case, she

was slightly disappointed, for the babies are more profitable

than the planets. However, she soon reconciled herself to her

fate, and produced from some cranny immediately under the eaves

of the cow-shed bureau, a pack of cards wrapped up in an old

newspaper. She then carefully locked the door to keep out the

children, and drew down the curtains lest their inquiring minds

should lead them to observe her mysterious operations through the

window. Then taking the wonder-working pieces of pasteboard in

her hands, and seating herself opposite her visitor, she

announced her gracious will, thus: "You shall have six wishes."

Then, without asking him what he wished for, or whether he wished

for anything, she shuffled the cards a few seconds, and read off

their mysterious significance as follows, her curious and anxious

customer looking furtively around, meanwhile, to spy out the

hiding-place of the wooden courser:

"'Pears to me you will have good luck in futur, though it seems

to me that you have had a great deal of bad luck and misfortune

in your life; but you will certainly do better in your futur days

than you have done yet in your life, at least, so it seems to me.

'Pears to me your good luck will commence right away, pretty

soon, immediate, in a very few days; you will have some great

good luck befal you within a 9. I designate time by days, and

weeks, and months, and sometimes years, so this good luck of

which I told you, you will certainly have within 9 days, or 9

weeks, or 9 months, or possibly 9 years--9 days I think; yes, I am

sure; within 9 days, at least so it 'pears to me. You are going

to make a change in your business, so it seems to me--you are

going to leave your present business, and make a change; you will

make this change within a 7, which may be 7 days or weeks; weeks

I think, yes certainly within 7 weeks, at least so it 'pears to

me--this change in your business which will take place in 7 days,

or weeks, I think, yes weeks I'm sure, will be a change for the

better, and you will profit by it much, at least so it seems to

me--and it will come to pass within a 7; as I said before, within

a 7, months or days it may be, but weeks I think; yes, now I look

again, within a 7, weeks I'm certain, at least, so it 'pears to

me--you will receive a letter within a 3; years, perhaps, months,

it may be, but still it looks like days; yes, days I'm sure, days

it must be; within a 3, and days they are; you will receive a

letter within 3 days, I'm positively sure, or so it 'pears to me.

You have friends across water, from whom you will hear speedily

and soon, within a 5, which may be months, although I think not,

for it looks like years; did I say years? no, days; yes, days it

is again; within a 5, and days they are; this letter you will

have within 5 days; it will contain excellent news, which will

please you much; money, the news will be, and you will get the

letter within a 5, which may be months or years, but days it

looks like, and first-rate news it is, of money; I am positively

certain that it is within a 5, at least it seems so to me. You

face up good luck and prosperity, and you will be very rich

before you die, though I do not see how you are to get your

money, whether by business or legacy; but you will be very rich,

or so it seems to me. You will receive some money within a 4; it

will be in three parcels, and there will be considerable of it.

You will get it in three parcels within a 4, not hours, nor

years, nor yet months, but weeks; money in three parcels within a

4, and weeks they are, I'm certain. The money will be in three

parcels--three parcels; in three parcels you will get money within

a 4, which, now I look again, it may be years, but still I think

not. No, it is weeks; I'm certain, at least, so it 'pears to me.

There is a lady that has a good heart for you. She is a

light-complexioned lady, with black eyes; she has a good heart

for you, and I do not see any trouble between you, which means

that there is no opposition to your match, and that you will

certainly marry her within a 2, at least so it 'pears to me.

Within a 2 you will marry this light-complexioned lady, within a

2, which is not hours, nor yet days, I think it is months. I'll

look again; no, it is not months, but years; within a 2 and years

they are, yes, 2 years; before a 2, and years they are, this lady

will be your wife--at least, so it seems to me. 'Pears to me you

will get money with her, I do not know how much, but you will

certainly get money in three parcels, as I once remarked before,

within a 4, which I'm sure is weeks. You will be married twice;

once within a 2, once again within a 5 or 7 after your first wife

dies. I think it is a 5, though it may be a 7; and months it

looks like, though it may be weeks or days. You will live with

your first wife a 10; days it can't be, though it looks like

days--a 10, you'll live with her a 10, can it be hours, no, years

it is, it must be, because you will have five children by your

first wife, which makes it years--10 years it is, I know, at least

so it 'pears to me. You will have five children by your first

wife, but you will not raise them all. All will die but two, and

then your wife will die within a 1, which is a month, or so it

seems to me."

The inquirer was charmed with the lively prospect of so many

funerals, and mentally resolved to buy a couple of acres in

Greenwood for the accommodation of his future family. His

meditations were interrupted by the lady, who thus continued:

"You will marry a second wife, but you will have trouble about

her; there is a dark-complexioned man who interferes, and who

will trouble you for an 8, which may be years, although I think

not, nor hours, nor days, but months; I'm sure it is--yes, the

dark-complexioned man will trouble you for an 8, which I am sure

is months, yes, months it is, an 8 I say, and months they are, I

am certain, at least so it 'pears to me. By your second wife you

will have three children, who will all live--I see a funeral here

within a 6; it does not look like a friend or a relative, but it

is some acquaintance, or the friend of some acquaintance, or the

acquaintance of some friend--the funeral is within a 6, but it

does not come very near to you--you will go to a wedding within a

3, and you will receive a present of a ring within a 2, which

may be days--you will after this be very prosperous and happy, you

will be very long-lived--you will get a letter and a present from

the light-complexioned lady within a 9, which, as I said before,

it may be hours, which I think it is, though weeks it may be, or

months, or even years; though certainly within a 9, which, now I

look again, is days, yes, I am sure, certain, within a 9, a

letter and a present from the light-complexioned lady, a 9 it is

and days, within a 9, and days they are, at least, so it 'pears

to me."

Here ended the communication, and, on inquiring the price,

Johannes was astonished to learn that he had received but

twenty-five cents' worth. Regretting that he had not invested a

dollar in a commodity so "cheap and very filling at the price"

for future consumption, he departed, first taking a long

lingering look to find, if possible, the lurking-place of the

magic broomstick charger. He didn't see it, and gave it up, and

came away declaring that such a woman was not qualified to take

the social position his wife must assume. He did not, however,

wish to discourage her; he thought that the water-melon trade

might be comprehended by a lady of her abilities, or that she

could perhaps thoroughly master the pop-corn and molasses candy

business, and make it lucrative.

CHAPTER VI.

In which are narrated the Wonderful Workings of Madame Morrow,

the "Astonisher," of No. 76. Broome Street; and how, by a

Crinolinic Stratagem, the "Individual" got a Sight of his "Future

Husband."

CHAPTER VI.

MADAME MORROW, THE ASTONISHER, No. 76 BROOME STREET.

Madame Morrow is the only one of the fortune-telling fraternity

in New York who refuses to dispense her astrological favors to

both sexes. She positively declines receiving any visits from

"gentlemen," and confines her business attention exclusively to

"ladies," of whom many are her regular customers. One reason for

this course of conduct is, that she imagines her own sex to be

the more credulous, and more readily disposed to put faith in her

claims to supernatural knowledge, and she naturally prefers to

deal with believers rather than with sceptics. Her "lady"

customers are more tractable and easily managed than men, and are

not so apt to ask puzzling and impertinent questions; and as the

Madame can manage more of them in a day, of course the pecuniary

return is larger than if she exercised her art in behalf of

curious masculinity as well.

Of her history before she engaged in her present business, not

much is known to those who have met her only of late years, for

with regard to her early life she chooses to exercise a politic

reticence. The whole "style" of the woman, however, her dress,

manner, and conversation, are strong indications that her younger

and more attractive days were not passed in a nunnery, but more

probably in establishments where "Free Love" is more than a

theory. The character of the greater part of her "lady" visitors

is of a grade that goes to corroborate this supposition, and

leads to the belief that among women of doubtful virtue "old

acquaintance" is not easily "forgot." By far the greater number

of Madame Morrow's customers are girls of the town, and women of

even more disreputable character.

The fact that a visit to this renowned sorceress must be paid in

a feminine disguise, made the attempt to secure an interview of

more than ordinary interest. How this difficulty was mastered,

and how an entrance was finally effected into the citadel from

which all mankind is rigorously excluded, is best told in the

words of the "Individual" who accomplished that curious feat.

How the Cash Customer visited the "Astonisher"--How he

was Astonished--and How he saw his Future Husband.

The Cash Customer in pursuit of a wife had been rebuffed, but was

not disheartened. He had, so to speak, fought a number of very

severe hymeneal rounds and got the worst of them all; but he had

taken his punishment like a man, and had still wind and pluck to

come up bravely to the matrimonial scratch when "time" was

called, and as yet showed no signs of giving in. His backers, if

he'd had any, would have still been tolerably sure of their

money, and not painfully anxious to hedge. The bets would have

been about even that he'd win the fight yet, and come out of the

battle a triumphant husband, instead of being knocked out of the

field a disconsolate and discomfited bachelor.

But, although his ardor had not cooled, and though his strength

and determination still held out, he had grown slightly cautious,

and had conceived a plan for going like a spy into the camp of

the enemy, and there thoroughly reconnoitring the positions that

he had to storm, and at the same time making himself master of

the wiles and stratagems that were the peculiar weapons of the

female foe, and so learn some infallible way to capture a

first-quality wife. At any rate, he would give himself the

benefit of the doubt and make the experiment. He would a-wooing

go, not apparelled in conquering broadcloth, in subjugating

marseilles, or overpowering doeskin, but carrying the unaccustomed,

but not less potent weapons of laces, moire-antique, crinoline,

and gaiters.

In fact, there was also a stern necessity in the case, for the

lady on whom he had now set his young affections was particular

as to her customers, and did not admit the shirt-collar gender to

the honor of her confidence.

But was this to stop him? If the lady shut out the whole

masculine world from the inevitable fascinations of her

superabundant charms, was it not for sweet charity's sake, that a

whole community might not go into ecstatic frenzies over her

peerless beauty, and all men, being stricken in love of the same

woman, go to cutting each other's throats with bowie-knives and

other modern improvements!

It was easy to see that _Madame Morrow_ did not want to become

another Helen, to be abducted to some modern Troy, and have a ten

years' row, and any quantity of habeas corpuses, and innumerable

contempts of interminable courts, after the modern fashion of

conducting a strife about a runaway maiden.

Such a considerate beauty, veiling her undoubted fascinations

from the rude gaze of man, from purely prudential reasons, must

be a prize of rare value, and well worth the winning.

Her qualifications in magic, too, seemed to be of the very first

order, to judge from her notification to the wonder-seeking

world.

"ASTONISHING TO ALL.--Madame MORROW claims to be the

most wonderful astrologist in the world, or that has

ever been known, as I am the seventh daughter of the

seventh daughter, who was also a great astrologist. I

have a natural gift to tell past, present, and future

events of life. I have astonished thousands during my

travels in Europe. I will tell how many times you are

to be married, how soon, and will show you the likeness

of your future husband, and will cause you to be

speedily married, and you will enjoy the greatest

happiness of matrimonial bliss and good luck through

your whole life. I will also show the likeness of

absent friends and relations, and I will tell so true

all the concerns of life that you cannot help being

astonished. No charge, if not satisfied. Gentlemen not

admitted. No. 76 Broome street, near Columbia."

There was but one thing in this that troubled the "Individual"

with any particularly sharp pangs. He intended to marry the

Astonisher, but he was a little bothered what to do with the

seven daughters, for of course the Madame would not fail to

follow the excellent example of her revered mother, and would

never stop short of the mystic number.

He finally concluded that all his duties as a father would be

faithfully performed if he taught them to read, write, and play

on the piano, and then gave them each a sewing-machine to begin

the world with. He did think of bringing them up for the ballet,

but their success in that profession being somewhat dependent on

the size and symmetry of their dancing implements, he felt it

would be improper to positively determine on that line of

business before he had been favored with a sight of the young

ladies. Reserving, therefore, his decision on this knotty point

until time should further develop the subject, he prepared for

the unsexing which was indicated as an inevitable preliminary to

a visit to Madame Morrow, by the sentence "Gentlemen not

admitted."

He proposed to get himself up in a way that would slightly

astonish the Madame herself, although she had faithfully promised

in her advertisement to astonish him. He would have been willing

to wager a small sum that with all her witchcraft she would be

unable to keep that promise, for in the regular course of his

business, he had become so accustomed to marvels, wonders, and

miracles, that the upheaval of a volcano in the Park wouldn't

discompose him unless it singed his whiskers. He had a strong

desire, however, to realize the old sensation of astonishment,

and he was of the opinion that the "likeness of his future

husband" would accomplish that feat if anything could.

Heroic was Johannes, and withal ingenious, and this then was his

wonderful plan.

He would visit this Madame Morrow, not by proxy, but in his own

proper person; if not as a man, then as a woman; yes, he would

petticoat himself up to the required dimensions, if it took a

week to tie on the machinery. Off with the pantaloons; on with

the skirts; down with the broadcloth; hurrah for the cotton and

hey for victory, and a look at his future husband.

To an inventor of theatrical costumes hied he with this fell

design in his heart.

The requisite paraphernalia were bargained for and sent home to

the ambitious voyager, who, at the sight thereof, was "astonished"

in advance, and stricken aghast by the complicated mysteries of

laces, ribbons, strings, bones, buttons, pins, capes, collars,

and other inexplicable articles that met his gaze.

The question instantly occurred, "Could he get into these

things?"

Not a bit of it; he would sooner undertake to report in

short-hand the speech of a thunder-cloud, and with much better

prospects of success. He felt his own insignificance, and as he

looked out at the window, he regarded a passing female with awe.

He felt that he was fast becoming imbecile, not to say idiotic,

when he bethought him of his friends. Two discreet married men,

who knew the ropes, were called to the rescue, and began the

work; they piled on layer after layer of the material, and in

the course of four or five hours had built him into a pyramid of

the proper size, when they gave him their solemn assurance that

he was "all right." He has since discovered that they had tied

his under-sleeves round his ankles, and that the things he wore

on his arms must have belonged somewhere else. There was trouble

about the hair, and it required the combined ingenuity and wisdom

of the masculine trio to keep the bonnet on, and this difficulty

was only overcome at last by tying strings from the inside of the

crown of that invention to the ears of the sufferer.

Then, and not till then, had anybody thought of the whiskers.

They must be sacrificed; and though the miserable victim to his

own ambition consented to the disfigurement, how was it to be

accomplished? The luckless Johannes could no more sit down in a

barber's chair than the City Hall could get into an omnibus. At

last he knelt down, which was the nearest approach he could make

to a sitting position, and Jenkins, mounted on the bed, shaved

him as well as he could at arm's length.

When the operation was concluded, his head looked as if it had

been parboiled and the skin taken off. He didn't dare to curse

Jenkins for his clumsiness, knowing that if he relieved his mind

in that desirable manner, Jenkins would refuse to help him

undress when he wanted to get out of the innumerable manacles

that now confined every joint. He was as helpless as a turtle

that the unkind hand of ruthless man has rolled over on his back.

However, the disguise was complete; he looked in the glass and

thought he was his own landlady; his best friends wouldn't have

known him, and the teller of the bank would have pronounced him a

forgery and refused to certify him; he felt like a full-rigged

clipper ship, and got under sail as soon as possible and bore

down upon Madame Morrow's residence. He nearly capsized as he

stepped into the street, but he righted after a heavy lurch to

the north-east, and kept his course without further serious

disaster. He made a speedy run to Broome street, the voyage being

accomplished in less than the expected time, although a heavy

sea, in the shape of a boy with a wheelbarrow, struck him

amidships, on the corner of Sheriff street, doing some damage to

his lower works and carrying away a yard or so of lace from his

main skirt. He finally came up to the house in splendid style,

and cast anchor on the opposite sidewalk to take an observation.

The anchorage was good, and he rode securely for a short time

until he could repair damages, he having carried away some of his

upper rigging; in other words, he had caught his veil on a

meat-hook and had been unable to rescue it. He rigged a sort of

jury-veil with the end of his shawl, so that he could hide his

blushing countenance in case of too close scrutiny.

Madame Morrow lives, as he now discovered, in a low, three-story

brick house, which cannot be called dirty, simply because that

mild word expresses an approximation towards cleanliness which no

house in this locality has known for years. City readers can get

an idea of its condition by understanding that it is in the worst

part of "The Hook;" to readers in the country, who have luckily

never seen anything filthier than a barn yard, no information can

be given which would meet the case. Sunshine is the only

protection for a well-dressed man against the population of this

part of the town. In the twilight or darkness he would be robbed,

if not garroted and murdered. The boldest and most desperate

burglars, and others of that stamp, have their homes about

here--fathers who teach their children the thief's profession, and

mothers who carry pickpockets at the breast. In the midst of this

nest of crime the fortune-teller has her home, and here she

thrives.

The daring man, protected by his false colors, there being no

officious authority in that neighborhood to exercise the right of

search, came alongside the house and prepared, metaphorically, to

board; that is, he rang the bell.

He was admitted by an Irish girl, whose incrusted face showed

that the same deposit of dirt had probably held possession

undisturbed for weeks. They had just entered the hall door when

two small children, who were contending for their vested rights

with a big yellow dog that had interfered with their dinner,

commenced an unearthly squalling, which, for the instant, made

the millinery delegate fairly believe that Tophet was out for

noon. The Hibernian maiden, with great presence of mind,

immediately attempted to quiet the storm by administering to each

inverted brat a sound correction, in the manner usually adopted

by mothers.

Particulars are omitted.

Then she resumed her attentions to the stranger, and convoyed him

into port in the parlor. Securely harbored in this safe retreat,

Johannes took another observation.

The room was small, and what few things were in it looked shabby

and dirty of course. The principal article of furniture was a

huge basketful of soiled linen, which had probably been "taken

in" to wash, and from a respectable family, for every single

article looked ashamed to be caught in such company, and tried to

burrow down out of sight. Disconsolate shirts elbowed humiliated

socks, which in turn kicked against mortified flannels, or hid

themselves beneath disconcerted sheets; abashed shirt-collars and

humbled dickies tried to shrink out of sight in very shame

beneath a dishonored tablecloth, the wine-stains on which showed

it to belong in better society. A dejected and cast-down woman

was assorting the despairing contents of the basket with a look

of desolation.

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 "Dick," who, it seemed, belonged

respectively to those two mechanical constituents of our Fire

Department.

At the end of that time the Irish girl, who had succeeded in

establishing "Dick's" claim to her satisfaction, arose and

invited the stranger to the room of Madame Morrow.

He passed 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.