 which she prayed God would forgive him. »Certain I am (said she) the count
and my lady went into the chamber with the disposition of two lambs, and in the
twinkling of an eye, (Lord have mercy upon us!) there was nothing to be heard
but discord and desperation! Ah! Mr. Pickle, Mr. Pickle! it was for no
charitable end, that you was so anxious to occupy the next room. I thought there
was something unnatural in the case, when I saw you lead up that old beldame
with the beard. You have ruined the reputation of my house, Mr. Pickle. My good
friends the countess of Pepper-marsh, lady Tickletoe, and Mrs. Riggle, will
never enter my doors again. I shall be deprived of getting an honest livelihood;
and all by the cruelty of one that I loved as well as if I had been the mother
that bore him. O that ever I was born to see this unlucky day!« These words she
accompanied with sundry sobs, and a few extempore tears, the nature of which he
perfectly understood; and therefore prescribed a cordial which in a moment set
her heart at ease.
 

                                   Chapter XC

He persuades Cadwallader to assume the Character of a Magician, in which he
acquires a great Share of Reputation, by his Responses to three Females of
Distinction, who severally consult the Researches of his Art
 
Her suspicion of his associate, while it afforded him subject for mirth, struck
his imagination with an idea which he could not help indulging; and when he
communicated the conceit to Cadwallader, it in a moment acquired his
approbation. This notion he imparted in a proposal, to subject the town to their
ridicule, by giving responses in the character of a professed conjurer, to be
personated by the old Misanthrope, whose aspect was extremely well calculated
for the purpose. The plan was immediately adjusted in all its parts; an
apartment hired in an house accommodated with a public stair; so that people
might have free ingress and egress, without being exposed to observation; and
this tenement being furnished with the apparatus of a magician, such as globes,
telescopes, a magic lanthorn, a skeleton, a dried monkey, together with the
skins of an alligator, otter and snake, the conjurer himself took possession of
his castle, after having distributed printed advertisements, containing the
particulars of his undertaking.
    These bills soon operated according to the wish of the projectors. As the
price of the oracle was fixed at half a guinea, the public naturally concluded,
that the author was no common fortune-teller
