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 circumstances, by merely shifting the pictures at one end of the instrument; or a horse or a dog might be substituted 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 amusement 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.