The Witches of New York. Doesticks Q. K. Philander
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.
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