`` Why , perhaps , '' said the ragged old mendicant , `` if the bank is in good standing , I ca n't say but I may have enough about me to change your bill . '' `` It is a bill of the Suffolk Bank , '' said I , `` and better than the specie . '' As the beggar had nothing to object , he now produced a small buff leather bag tied up carefully with a shoe-string . When this was opened , there appeared a very comfortable treasure of silver coins of all sorts and sizes , and I even fancied that I saw gleaming among them the golden plumage of that rare bird in our currency the American eagle . In this precious heap was my bank-note deposited , the rate of exchange being considerably against me . His wants being thus relieved , the destitute man pulled out of his pocket an old pack of greasy cards which had probably contributed to fill the buff leather bag in more ways than one . `` Come ! '' said he ; `` I spy a rare fortune in your face , and for twenty-five cents more I 'll tell you what it is . '' I never refuse to take a glimpse into futurity ; so , after shuffling the cards and when the fair damsel had cut them , I dealt a portion to the prophetic beggar . Like others of his profession , before predicting the shadowy events that were moving on to meet me he gave proof of his preternatural science by describing scenes through which I had already passed . Here let me have credit for a sober fact . When the old man had read a page in his book of fate , he bent his keen gray eyes on mine and proceeded to relate in all its minute particulars what was then the most singular event of my life . It was one which I had no purpose to disclose till the general unfolding of all secrets , nor would it be a much stranger instance of inscrutable knowledge or fortunate conjecture if the beggar were to meet me in the street today and repeat word for word the page which I have here written . The fortune-teller , after predicting a destiny which time seems loth to make good , put up his cards , secreted his treasure-bag and began to converse with the other occupants of the wagon . `` Well , old friend , '' said the showman , `` you have not yet told us which way your face is turned this afternoon . '' `` I am taking a trip northward this warm weather , '' replied the conjurer , `` across the Connecticut first , and then up through Vermont , and maybe into Canada before the fall . But I must stop and see the breaking up of the camp-meeting at Stamford . '' I began to think that all the vagrants in New England were converging to the camp-meeting and had made this wagon , their rendezvous by the way . The showman now proposed that when the shower was over they should pursue the road to Stamford together , it being sometimes the policy of these people to form a sort of league and confederacy . `` And the young lady too , '' observed the gallant bibliopolist , bowing to her profoundly , `` and this foreign gentleman , as I understand , are on a jaunt of pleasure to the same spot .
It would add incalculably to my own enjoyment , and I presume XXXXX that of my colleague and his friend , if they could be prevailed upon to join our party . ''
across against as at if in on over that to