Having then, as he supposed, got his money’s worth, he was about to take his leave, when she interrupted him thus:
“I have a charm for securing good luck to whoever wears it; you can wear it, and your most intimate friend would never suspect it; my charge is one dollar for gentlemen; a great many have bought it of me; many merchants who were on the point of failing have come to me and possessed this charm, and been saved; you had better possess it, for it will be sure to bring you good luck; if you possess it, you will always be successful in business; Mr. Lynch of Mott Street possessed it, and has been very lucky ever since, besides a great number I could name; my advice to you is, possess the charm.”
She then put her elbows on her knees after the manner of a Fulton Market apple-pedler, in which classic attitude she awaited an answer. The decision was not favorable to her hopes; for the economical customer concluded not to invest in the charm, although it had brought such excellent fortune to Mr. Lynch of Mott Street. He departed, encountering again in his progress the weak-eyed one, who met him with a smile, escorted him to the door with a great laugh, and dismissed him with a joyous grin.
CHAPTER XVII.
Treats of the peculiarities of several Witches in a single batch.
CHAPTER XVII.
A BATCH OF WITCHES.
The fortune-tellers so elaborately described in the foregoing chapters are by no means the only ones in New York, engaged in that lucrative occupation; there are several others who were visited by the Individual, but who in their surroundings approach so nearly to those already set down, that a detailed description of each would necessarily be a somewhat monotonous repetition. So the prophecy only of each one is here writ down, with a few words suggestive of the character of the immediate neighborhood, leaving the imaginative reader to fill up the blank himself, or to turn back to some foregoing chapter for a picture of a similar locality, if he prefers it ready-made to his hands.