The Witches of New York Part 6

The girl, who had disappeared, now returned, and with an air of mystery slipped into the hand of her visitor a red card, on which was inscribed:

+-------------------------------------------------+ |No Person allowed to remain in the Establishment | |without a ticket. Please present this on entering| |Madame Morrow's room. Fee in full, $1. | +-------------------------------------------------+

For an hour and a half after the receipt of this card and the payment of $1 therefor, did Johannes quietly wait in the room with the big basket, being entertained meanwhile by the two women who conversed with each other upon the relative merits of engines No. 18 and 27, and with a long discussion as to the comparative personal beauty of "Tom" and "d.i.c.k," who, it seemed, belonged respectively to those two mechanical const.i.tuents of our Fire Department.

At the end of that time the Irish girl, who had succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng "d.i.c.k's" claim to her satisfaction, arose and invited the stranger to the room of Madame Morrow.

He pa.s.sed up a narrow flight of stairs, the condition of which, as to dirt, was concealed by no friendly carpet; then he sailed into a front parlor which was furnished elegantly, and perhaps gorgeously, with carpets, mirrors, sofas, and all the usual requirements of a lady's apartment.

Madame herself appeared at the door. She is a tall, sallow-looking woman, with a complexion the color of old parchment: with light brown eyes and light hair; being attired in a handsome delaine dress of half-mourning, and decorated with a costly cameo pin and ear-drops, she looked not unlike a servant out for a holiday, making a sensation in her mistress's finery.

She led her lovely visitor into a little closet-like room, in which were a bureau, two chairs, a table, and a small stand, covered with a number of her business hand-bills and a pack of cards. She asked first: "What month was you born?" On receiving the answer, the Astonisher took a book from the bureau and read as follows: "A person born in this month is of an amiable and frank disposition, benevolent, and an amiable and desirable partner in the marriage relation. Your lucky days are Tuesdays and Thursdays, on which days you may enter on any undertaking, or attempt any enterprise with a good prospect of success." Then she took up the cards again, and after the usual shuffling and cutting, the Astonisher fired away as follows.

"You face luck, you face prosperity, you face true love and disinterested affection, you face a speedy marriage, you face a letter which will come in three days and will contain pleasant news-you face a ring, you face a present of jewelry done up in a small package; the latter will come within two hours, two days, two weeks, or two months-you face an agreeable surprise, you face the death of a friend, you face the seven of clubs which is the luckiest card in the pack-you face two gentlemen with a view to matrimony, one of whom has brown hair and brown eyes, and the other has lighter hair and blue eyes-they are both thinking of you at the present time, but the nearest one you face is the one with light eyes-your marriage runs within six or nine months."

There was very much more to the same effect, but as Johannes was pining all this time for a look at his future husband, he did not pay the strictest attention to it. Finally, when she had finished talking, she said, "Step this way and see your future husband."

This was the eventful moment.

The disguised one went to the table and there beheld a pine box, about the size of an ordinary candle-box, though shallower; it was unpainted, and decidedly unornamental as an article of furniture. In one end of it was an aperture about the size of the eye-hole of a telescope; this was carefully covered with a small black curtain. This mystic contrivance was placed upon a table so low that the husband-seeker was compelled to go on his knees to get his eye down low enough to see through. He accomplished this feat without grumbling, although his knees were scarified by the whalebones which surrounded him. The Astonisher then drew aside the little curtain with a grand flourish, and her customer beheld an indistinct figure of a bloated face with a mustache, with black eyes and black hair; it was a hang-dog, thief-like face, and one that he would not have pa.s.sed in the street without involuntarily putting his hands on his pockets to a.s.sure himself that all was right. But he felt that he had no hope of a future husband if he did not accept this one, and he made up his mind to be reconciled to the match.

This contrivance for showing the "future husband" is sometimes called the Magic Mirror, and may be procured at any optician's for a dollar and a quarter. The "future husband" may of course be varied to suit circ.u.mstances, by merely s.h.i.+fting the pictures at one end of the instrument; or a horse or a dog might be subst.i.tuted with equal propriety and probability.

Disappointed, and sick at heart and stomach, the Cash Customer bore away for home, and accomplished the return voyage without disaster. He didn't so much mind the unexpected difference in the personal attractions of Madame Morrow from what he had hoped, for he had been rather accustomed to disappointments of that sort of late, but he couldn't see that his admission to the camp of the enemy had enabled him to spy out anything of particular advantage to him in future operations. So he cogitated and mournfully whistled slow tunes, as he cut himself out of his unaccustomed harness by the help of a pen-knife with a file-blade.

CHAPTER VII.

Contains a full account of the interview of the Cash Customer with Doctor Wilson, the Astrologer, of No. 172 Delancey Street.

The Fates decree that he shall "pizon his first Wife." HOORAY!!

CHAPTER VII.

DR. WILSON, No. 172 DELANCEY STREET.

This ignorant, half-imbecile old man is the only _wizard_ in New York whose fame has become public. There are several other men who sometimes, as a matter of favor to a curious friend, exercise their astrological skill, but they do not profess witchcraft as a means of living; they do not advertise their gifts, but only dabble in necromancy in an amateur way, more as a means of amus.e.m.e.nt than for any other purpose. On the other hand Dr.

Wilson freely uses the newspapers to announce to the public his star-reading ability, and his willingness, for a consideration, to tell all events, past and future, of a paying customer's life.

He professes to do all his fortune-telling in a "strictly scientific" manner, and it is but justice to him to say, that he alone, of all the witches of New York, drew a horoscope, consulted books of magic, made intricate mathematical calculations, and made a show of being scientific. In his case only was any attempt made to convince the seeker after hidden wisdom, that modern fortune-telling is aught else than very lame and shabby guesswork. The old Doctor has by no means so many customers as many of his female rivals; he is old and unprepossessing-were he young and handsome the case might be otherwise.

He has been a pretended "botanic physician," or what country people term a "root doctor;" but failing to earn a living by the practice of medicine, he took up "Demonology and Witchcraft" to aid him to eke out a scanty subsistence. He does but little in either branch of his business, the public appearing to have slight faith in his ability either to cure their maladies or foretell their future.

The character of his surroundings is noted in the following description, and his oracular communication is given, word for word.

An Hour with a Wizard.-The Cash Customer is to "Pizon"

his First Wife, and then get Another. Hooray!

"I am like a vagabond pig with no family ties, who has no lady pig to welcome him home o'nights, and with no tender sucklings to call him 'papa,' in that prattling porcine language that must fall so sweetly on the ears of all parents of innocent porklings.

Like Oth.e.l.lo, I have no wife, and really I can see little hope in the future."

Thus moralized the "Individual," the morning after his experiment with the women's gear, and his failure to learn, at a single lesson, the whole art of catching a wife. Then he bethought him that perhaps the art could not be learned without a master; and then came the other thought that no one could tell so well how to win a witch-wife as one who had himself been successful in that risky experiment.

To find a man with a fortune-telling wife is no easy matter, for most of the marriages contracted by these ladies are by no means of a permanent character, and the male parties to the temporary partners.h.i.+ps are always kept in the background. But if he could discover up a wizard, a masculine master of the Black Art, there were strong probabilities that such an individual could put him in the way of winning a miracle-working spouse, at the very least possible trouble and expense. He would seek that man as a preliminary to winning that woman. The daily newspapers showed him that in the person of a learned doctor, surnamed Wilson, he would probably find the man he wanted. He searched out that wonderful man, and the results of his visit are given in this identical chapter.

Old dreamy Sol Gills, of coffee-colored memory, has been admiringly recommended to the good opinion of the world by his friend, Capt. Ed'ard Cuttle, mariner of England, as a man "chock full of science." From the same eminent authority we also learn that Jack Bunsby was an individual of learning so vast, and experience so varied and comprehensive, that he never opened his oracular mouth but out fell "solid chunks of wisdom." That the person now dwells in our city who combines the scientific attainments of Gills with the intuitive wisdom of Bunsby, we have the solemn word of Johannes. The science is a trifle more dreamy and misty even than of old, and the wisdom is solider and chunkier, but both are as undeniable, as convincing, as "stunning," as in the best days of the Little Wooden Mids.h.i.+pman.

The fortunate possessor of this inestimable wealth of knowledge secludes himself from the curious public in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the house No. 172 Delancey street, like an underground hermit.

However, this unselfish and generous sage, not wis.h.i.+ng to hide entirely the light of his great learning from a benighted world, kindly condescends, in the advertis.e.m.e.nt herewith given, to retail his wisdom to anxious inquirers at a dollar a chunk:

"ASTROLOGY.-Dr. Wilson, 172 Delancey street, gives the most scientific and reliable information to be found on all concerns of life, past, present, and future.

Terms-ladies, 50 cents; gentlemen, $1. Birth required."

The last sentence is slightly obscure, and it was not quite clear to Johannes that he would not have to be "born again" on the premises. But at all events there was something refres.h.i.+ng in the novelty of consulting a "learned pundit" in pantaloons, after all the tough conjurers of the other s.e.x that he had undergone of late.

So he repaired to Delancey street in a joyous mood, nothing daunted by the requirements of the advertis.e.m.e.nt.

Delancey street is not Paradise, quite the contrary. In fact it may be set down as unsavory, not to say dirty in the extreme. The man that can walk through the east end of this delicious thoroughfare without a constant sensation of sea-sickness, has a stomach that would be true to him in a dissecting-room. The individual that can explore with his unwilling boots its slimy depths without a feeling of the most intense disgust for everything in the city and of the city, ought to live in Delancey street and buy his provisions at the corner grocery. He never ought to see the country, or even to smell the breath of a country cow. He should be exiled to the city; be banished to perpetual bricks and mortar; be condemned to a never-ending series of omnibus rides, and to innumerable varieties of short change.

The delegate picked his way gingerly enough, thinking all the while that if Leander had been compelled to wade through Delancey street, instead of taking a clean swim across the sea, Hero might have died a respectable old maid for all Leander. And yet Johannes says he doesn't believe that History will give _him_ any credit for his valorous navigation of the said street.

He at last reached the designated spot, sound as to body, though wofully soiled as to garments, and approached the semi-subterranean abode of the great prophet, and immediately after his modest rap at the bas.e.m.e.nt door, was met by the venerable sage in person.

He walked in, and then proceeded to take an observation of the cabalistic instruments and mysterious surroundings of the great philosopher.

The room was a small, low apartment, about ten feet by twelve, the floor uncarpeted and uneven; the walls were damp, and the whole place was like a vault. The furniture was very scanty, and all had an unwholesome moisture about it, and a curious odor, as if it gathered unhealthy dews by being kept underground. Three feeble chairs were all the seats, and a table which leaned against the wall was too ill and rickety to do its intended duty; many of the books which had once probably covered it, were now thrown in a promiscuous heap on the floor, where they slowly mildewed and gave out a graveyard smell. A miniature stove in the middle of the room, sweated and sweltered, and in its struggles to warm the unhealthy atmosphere had succeeded in suffusing itself with a clammy perspiration; it was in the last stages of debility; old age and abuse had used it sadly, and it now stood helplessly upon its crippled legs, and supported its nerveless elbow upon a st.u.r.dy whitewash brush. There were a few symptoms of medical pretensions in the shape of some vials, and bottles of drugs, and colored liquids on the mantelpiece; a great attempt at a display of scientific apparatus began and ended with an insulating stool, and an old-fas.h.i.+oned "cylinder and cus.h.i.+on"

electrical machine; a number of highly-colored prints of animals pasted on the wall, having evidently been scissored from the show-bill of a menagerie, had a look towards natural history, and a jar or two of acids suggested chemical researches. The books that still remained on the enervated table were an odd volume of Braithwaite's Retrospect, a treatise on Human Physiology, and another on Materia Medica; a number of bound volumes of Zadkiel's Astronomical Ephemeris, Raphael's Prophetic Almanac, Raphael's Prophetic Messenger, and a file of Robert White's Celestial Atlas, running back to 1808.

The appearance of the venerable sage of Delancey street was not so imposing as to strike a stranger with awe-quite the contrary.

He partook of the character of the room, and was a fitting occupant of such a place; he seemed some kind of unwholesome vegetable that had found that noisome atmosphere congenial, and had sprung indigenously from the slimy soil. One looked instinctively at his feet to see what kind of roots he had, and then glanced back at his head as if it were a huge bud, and about to blossom into some unhealthy flower. The traces of its earthy origin were plainly visible about this mouldy old plant; quant.i.ties of the rank soil still adhered to the face, filled up the wrinkles of the cheeks, found ample lodging in the ears and on the neck, and crowding under the h.o.r.n.y and distorted nails, made them still more ugly; and streaks and ridges of dirt clung to every portion of the garments, which answered to the bark or rind of this perspiring herb.

To drop this botanic figure of speech, Dr. Wilson is a man of about fifty-eight years of age, rather stout and thick-set, with grey eyes, and hair which was once brown, but is now grey, and with thin brown whiskers; the top of his head is nearly bald, except a few thin, furzy, short hairs, which made his skull look as if it had been kept in that damp room until mould had gathered on it. He was in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves, and was attired, for the most part, in a pair of sheep's grey pantaloons, which were made to cover that fraction of his body between his ankles and his armpits; the little patch of s.h.i.+rt that was visible above the waistband of that garment, was streaked with irregular lines of dirty black, as if it had gone into half mourning for the scarcity of water.

The man of science made a musty remark or two about the weather and the walking, and then, after carefully seating himself at the decrepit table, he said: "I suppose your business is of a fortun'-tellin' natur; if so, my terms is one dollar." The affirmative answer to the question and the payment of the dollar put new energy into the mouldy old man, and he prepared to astonish the beholder.

He demanded the age of his visitor, and then desired to be informed of the date of his birth, with particular reference to the exact time of day; Johannes drummed up his youthful recollections of that interesting event, and gave the day, the hour, and the minute, with his accustomed accuracy. The sage made an exact minute of these wet-nurse items on a cheap slate with a stub of a pencil; then taking another cheap slate, he proceeded to draw a horoscope thereon, pausing a little over the signs of the zodiac, as if he was a little out in his astronomy, and wasn't exactly certain whether there should be twelve or twenty.

He settled this little matter by filling one half the slate as full as it would hold, and then carrying some to the other side, so as to have a few on hand in case of any emergency.

When the figure was drawn, and all the mysterious signs completed, the s.h.i.+rt-sleeve prophet became absorbed in an intricate calculation of such mysterious import that all his customer's mathematical proficiency was unable to make out what it was all about. First he set down a long row of figures, which he added together with much difficulty, and then seemed to instantly conceive the most unrelenting hostility to the sum total. The mathematical tortures to which he put that unhappy amount; the arithmetical abuse which he heaped upon it, and the algebraic contumely with which he overwhelmed it, almost defy description. He first belabored it with the four simple rules; he stretched it with Addition; he cut it in two with Subtraction; he made it top-heavy with Multiplication, and tore it to pieces with Division-then he extracted its square root; then extracted the cube root of that, which left nothing of the unfortunate sum total but a small fraction, which he then divided by _ab_, and made "equal to" an infinitesimal part of some unknown _x_. Having thus wreaked his vengeance on the unhappy number, he laid away the surviving fraction in a cold corner of the slate, where he left it, first, however, giving a parting token of his bitter malignity by writing the minus sign before it, which made it perpetually worse than nothing, and reduced it to a state of irredeemable algebraic bankruptcy. This praiseworthy object being finally achieved, he proceeded to translate into intelligible English the result of his calculations, which he announced in the terms following:

"The testimonial is not the most sanguine. If the time of birth is given correct there is reason to apprehend that something of an affective nature occurred at about eight years and ten months-at 16 10 I think I may say, if the time of birth is given correct, there is from the figures reason to expect that there is a probability of a similar sitiwation of events. At 24 there was a favorable sitiwation of events, if there was not somebody or somethin' afflictive on the contrary, the which I am disposed to think might be possible. At 25, if the time of birth is given correct, there is reason to expect great likelihoods of some success in life; I may, it is true, be mistaken in my calculations, but as the significators are angular, I think there is indications that such will be the sitiwation of events. At 30, if the time of birth is given correct, I think you are an individdyal as may look for some species of misfortin-there will be some rather singular circ.u.mstances occur, which might denote loss of friends, or the fallin' to you of a fortin, or great travellin' by water or land, or losin' money at cards, or breakin' your leg, or makin' a great discovery, or inventin'

somethin', or gettin' put into prison on suspicion of sorcery and witchcraft. You will see that there are indications to denote that you will certainly be accused of sorcery and witchcraft by some individdyals who are not your friends-the indications denote great likelihoods that this will make you uneasy in your mind, but I think there is nothin' of a very serious natur' to be feared at that time of life, if the time of birth is given correct. When any misfortin' is comin' upon you there is no doubt (though I am not goin' to state positively that such will be the case, still there is strong likelihoods that the indications give such a probability) that it will give you warnin' of its approach. At 36, if the time of birth is given correct, there is indications of a likelihood that you will fall upon some other misfortin'; I am not prepared to state positively that such will be the case, but I think you will have a misfortin', though I don't think it would be of a very afflictive natur'. There is at that time a circ.u.mstance of an unfriendly natur', though it may not happen to yourself; it might denote that your brother will get sick. There is another evil condition about this time which I will examine still furder. I see that there is indications of a likelihood that there is a probability of your having somethin'

amiss by a partner, if somethin' of a favorable natur' does not interpose, which is not unlikely, though I may be mistaken and will not say positively. You will be lucky, however, after that, and many of your evils will gradually begin to recline, as it were. There is reason to believe that the significators denote that in the course of your futur' life you will sometimes be thrown in with men who you will think is your friends, but who will prove to be your enemy. This I will not say positively, for I may be mistaken, which I think I am not, but if the time of birth is correct, you are an individdyal as gives likelihoods that such might be the case."

For more than an hour had the Inquirer been edified and instructed by these "solid chunks of wisdom," which, it will be remembered, were not delivered off-hand, but were carefully ciphered out by elaborate calculations on the slate aforesaid.

Lucid and elegant as was the language, and interesting as was the matter of these oracular communications, he felt it to be his duty to interrupt them for a time and change the subject to a theme in which he felt a nearer interest; accordingly he asked the musty Seer about his prospects of future wedded bliss. This was a subject of so great importance that all the other calculations had to be erased from the slate-this little operation was accomplished in the manner of the schoolboys who haint got any sponge, and the dirty hand plied briskly for a minute between the juicy mouth and the dingy slate, and became a shade grimier by this cleanly process. Then a new horoscope was drawn with more signs of the zodiac than ever, and in due time the result was thus announced: