When the Cash Inquirer stumbled, and took an involuntary leap into the middle of the bed, an awful voice came out of the dreariness, saying, “There is a chair right there behind you.” This information proved to be correct, and the discomfited delegate subsided into it, and gazed stolidly at the Madame. If Madame Harris were worth as much by the pound as beef, her market-price would be about twenty-five dollars. She was attired in a loose morning-gown, of an exceedingly flashy pattern, open before, disclosing a skirt meant to be white, but whose cleanliness was merely traditional. Of her countenance her visitor cannot speak, for it was carefully hidden from his inquiring gaze, and its unknown beauties are left to the imagination of the reader. Perched mysteriously on the back of her head, where it was retained by some feminine hocus-pocus, which has ever been a sealed mystery to mankind, was a little black bonnet, marvellous in pattern and design; from this depended a long black veil, covering her countenance, and disguising her as effectually as if she had washed her face and put on a clean dress.
She proceeded at once to business, and opened conversation with this appropriate remark: “My terms is fifty cents for gentlemen, and the pay is always in advance.”
Here followed a disbursement on the part of the anxious seeker after knowledge, and an approving chuckle was heard under the veil.
Taking up a pack of cards so overlaid with dirt that it was a work of time and study to tell a queen from a nine spot, or distinguish the knaves from the aces, she presented them with the imperative remark: “Cut them once.”
Then ensued the following wonderful predictions uttered by a dubious and uncertain voice under the veil—which voice seemed one minute to come from the mouth, then it issued from the throat, then it sprawled out of the stomach, then it was heard from the back of the head under the bonnet, and in the course of a few minutes it came from so many places, that the puzzled hearer was dubious as to its exact whereabouts—these curious effects being, doubtless, attributable to the thick covering over the face. But its various communications, when gathered together, were found to sum up as follows:
“You face back misfortune and trouble, of which you have had much, but they are now behind you, and you have no more to fear. You will henceforth be successful in business, you will have a great deal of money. Your affection card faces up a young woman with dark eyes and dark hair, about twenty-three years old; she is older than she has led you to believe; there is a dark-complexioned man whom you will see in two days, who is your enemy; you may not know it, but you had better beware of him, for he will do you an injury, if he can; you will see him and speak with him the night of day-after-to-morrow. Your marriage card faces up this dark woman, as I said before. I don’t see a great deal of money layin’ round her, but there is plenty of money layin’ round you in the future. Somebody will die and leave you money within nine weeks, not counting this week. You was born under the planet Mars, which gives you two lucky days in every week—Mondays and Thursdays; anything you begin on those days will surely succeed.”
Here she handed the cards to be cut again, which operation disclosed a new feature in the Individual’s matrimonial future, for she went on to say:
“There is another woman who faces your love-card, who has light hair and light eyes; she favors your love-card and will be your first wife; you will have five children—four girls and one boy; look out for the dark-complexioned man, for he favors your first wife, and, though she does not favor him very much, he will try to get her away from you. Your line of life is long; you will live to be sixty-eight years old, but you will die very suddenly, for your line of death crosses your line of life very suddenly, which always brings sudden death.”
Having given this cheering promise, she again held out the cards to be cut, and said, “Cut them again now, and make a wish at the same time, and I will tell you if you will have your wish.”
When the required ceremony had been solemnly performed, she continued: “You will have your wish, but not right away; don’t expect to get it before week after next, but then you will be sure to have it, for there is no disappointment in the cards for you.” She then informed her customer that she always answered unerringly two questions, which he was now at liberty to propound. He made a couple of inquiries relative to his future business prospects, and received in reply the promise of most gratifying results.