If it were desired to fancy visions of enchanting loveliness it would be necessary to insert therein other ingredients than the gipsy girl of the Third Avenue; alone she would be insufficient; too much would be left to the imagination; and in any event the illusion would be too great to last long.
She is of medium height, her eyes are brown and bright, and her hands are very large and red. She has no hair, but wears a scratch red wig, which gives her head a utilitarian character. Her face is deeply pitted with the small-pox, more than pitted—gullied, scarred, and seamed, as though some jealous rival had been trying to plough her complexion under; little short light hairs are thinly scattered on her cheek bones and upper lip, and in the shadows of the little ridges that disease had left, irresistibly compelling the mind to make an absurd comparison of her face with a sterile field, and imagine that at some past day it had been spaded up to plant a beard, which had only grown in scanty patches, here and there. Her nails were horny and ill-shaped, and underneath them and at their roots were large deposits of dirt and other fertilizing compounds, under the stimulating influence of which they had grown lank and long. Her attire was a sort of cross between the picturesque wildness of the gipsy, and the more civilized and unbecoming dress of Third Avenue Christians.
She was apparelled, principally, in a red flannel jacket, and a check handkerchief, which was passed under her chin and tied on the top of her wig, where the knot looked like a blue butterfly. There was a gown, but a series of subsoiling experiments would have been necessary to determine the material and texture; the surface was palpably dirt. Accompanying her there was a strong smell of gin, and from the odor of the liquor the visitor judged that it was a very poor article.
This gay old gipsy drew a chair to the table, and sat down, not in a graceful and composed manner, but more as if she had been dumped from a cart. She soon partially recovered herself, and straightened up slightly from the heap into which she had collapsed, and, turning her head away from her customer, she elaborately remarked: “Fifty cents and your left ’and.”
The Individual made a careful search for his small change, and fished out the exact amount which he promptly paid over.
This delightful gipsy then took his left hand and looked at it for a minute in an imbecile kind of way, as if she didn’t know exactly what to do with it, and was undecided whether it was to be made into soup, or she was to drink it immediately with warm water and a little sugar. This last impression evidently prevailed, for she tried to pour it into her apron, and only recovered from her delusion when the fingers tangled themselves up in the strings. Then a glimmering of the true state of the case seemed to dawn upon her, and she began to have a dim idea that she was expected to say something.
Now the roving gipsy was not by any means intoxicated at this time; that is to say, she may have been partaking of gin, or gin and water, or may have been sucking sugar that had gin on it, or she may have been taking a little gin and peppermint for a stomach-ache, or she may have been bathing her head in gin, or have been otherwise making use of that potent remedy as a medicine, but she was by no means a subject for official interference in case she had wandered into the street, but she was, to tell the truth, not in her most clear-headed condition; although probably she did not see more than one Cash Customer sitting solemnly before her, still that one was quite as many as she could well manage at that time.
After the signal failure of her little demonstration on the hand of her guest, she, by a strong effort, seemed to concentrate her faculties, and after several trials she roused herself and spoke as follows, emphasizing the short words with spiteful vindictiveness, and paying the most particular attention to the improper aspiration of the h’s.
“You are a person as has seen a great deal of dif—”
The gay Bohemian here evidently desired to say “difficulty,” but the word was a sad stumbling-block, a four-syllable rock ahead which was too much for her powers in her then exhausted state of mind; she charged on the unfortunate word boldly, however, and tried to carry it by storm, but each time was repulsed with great loss of breath—“a great deal of dif—dif—dif—diffle”—it was no use, so she tried back and began again.