A Seer was telling fortunes when a neighbor ran up saying the Seer’s house was being broken into. On his way there people asked why he did not foretell that.
Know your art.
Townsend version
A wizard, sitting in the marketplace, was telling the fortunes of the passers-by when a person ran up in great haste, and announced to him that the doors of his house had been broken open and that all his goods were being stolen. He sighed heavily and hastened away as fast as he could run. A neighbor saw him running and said, “Oh! you fellow there! you say you can foretell the fortunes of others; how is it you did not foresee your own?’
JBR Collection (The Fortune-Teller)
A Man who gave himself out for a Wizard and Fortune-teller, used to stand in the market-place and pretend to cast nativities, give information as to missing property, and other matters of the like kind. One day, while he was busily plying his trade, a waggish fellow broke through the crowd, and gasping as if for want of breath, told him that his house was in flames, and must shortly be burnt to the ground. Off ran the Wizard at the news as fast as his legs could carry him, while the Wag and a crowd of other people followed at his heels. The house, it seems, was not on fire at all; and the Wag asked him, amid the jeers of the people, how it was that he, who was so clever at telling other people’s fortunes, should know so little of his own.
L’Estrange version
There was a kind of a petty conjurer, that made it his profession to resolve questions, and tell fortunes, and he held forth in the market-place. Word was brought him, in the very middle of his schemes and calculations, that his house was robb’d; and so away he scours immediately to learn the truth on’t. As he was running home in all haste a droll takes him up by the way, with this short question, Friend (says he) how come you to be so good at telling other peoples fortunes, and know so little of your own?
Gherardo Image from 1480
Divinator et Latrones
Circulator quidam, medio in foro, divinatoriam profitebatur et inspectione manuum cuiuslibet sortes augurabatur, magna plebeculae turba stipatus, quam dum suis praestigiis incautam teneret, quidam ipsi annuntiat effractas fores domus suae et omnia a latronibus direpta et asportata. Quo audito, turbatus, relictis omnibus, ad domum cucurrit. Tunc unusquisque exclamabat, “O illusor et mendax, aliorum sortem divinare et scire te dicis, et tuam nescis.”
Perry #161