he table will have to be changed
later."

Mr. Leeds placed the cloth on the table again and turning toward his
illustrious audience, asked them, "Are you satisfied? May we begin?"

"Hurry up! How cold-blooded he is!" said the widow.

"Then, ladies and gentlemen, take your seats and get your questions
ready."

Mr. Leeds disappeared through a doorway and in a few moments returned
with a black box of worm-eaten wood, covered with inscriptions in
the form of birds, beasts, and human heads.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he began solemnly, "once having had occasion
to visit the great pyramid of Khufu, a Pharaoh of the fourth dynasty,
I chanced upon a sarcophagus of red granite in a forgotten chamber. My
joy was great, for I thought that I had found a royal mummy, but what
was my disappointment on opening the coffin, at the cost of infinite
labor, to find nothing more than this box, which you may examine."

He handed the box to those in the front row. Padre Camorra drew back in
loathing, Padre Salvi looked at it closely as if he enjoyed sepulchral
things, Padre Irene smiled a knowing smile, Don Custodio affected
gravity and disdain, while Ben-Zayb hunted for his mirrors--there
they must be, for it was a question of mirrors.

"It smells like a corpse," observed one lady, fanning herself
furiously. "Ugh!"

"It smells of forty centuries," remarked some one with emphasis.

Ben-Zayb forgot about his mirrors to discover who had made this
remark. It was a military official who had read the history of
Napoleon.

Ben-Zayb felt jealous and to utter another epigram that might annoy
Padre Camorra a little said, "It smells of the Church."

"This box, ladies and gentlemen," continued the American, "contained
a handful of ashes and a piece of papyrus on which were written
some words. Examine them yourselves, but I beg of you not to breathe
heavily, because if any of the dust is lost my sphinx will appear in
a mutilated condition."

The humbug, described with such seriousness and conviction, was
gradually having its effect, so much so that when the box was passed
around, no one dared to breathe. Padre Camorra, who had so often
depicted from the pulpit of Tiani the torments and sufferings of hell,
while he laughed in his sleeves at the terrified looks of the sinners,
held his nose, and Padre Salvi--the same Padre Salvi who had on All
Souls' Day prepared a phantasmagoria of the souls in purgatory with
flames and transparencies illumi