things
considered, were not badly remunerated. A faithful few believed in him,
and told wonderful stories of what he had pronounced and prophesied
in the sanctuary of his consulting-room. The majority of his visitors
simply viewed him in the light of a public amusement, and wondered
why such a gentlemanlike man should have chosen to gain his living by
exhibiting himself as a quack.

CHAPTER II.

THE NUMBERS.

ON a raw and snowy evening toward the latter part of January, 1817, a
gentleman, walking along the Strand, turned into the street in which
Doctor Lagarde lived, and knocked at the physician's door.

He was admitted by an elderly male servant to a waiting-room on the
first floor. The light of one little lamp, placed on a bracket fixed to
the wall, was so obscured by a dark green shade as to make it difficult,
if not impossible, for visitors meeting by accident to recognize each
other. The metal money-box fixed to the table was just visible. In the
flickering light of a small fire, the stranger perceived the figures of
three men seated, apart and silent, who were the only occupants of the
room beside himself.

So far as objects were to be seen, there was nothing to attract
attention in the waiting-room. The furniture was plain and neat, and
nothing more. The elderly servant handed a card, with a number inscribed
on it, to the new visitor, said in a whisper, "Your number will be
called, sir, in your turn," and disappeared. For some minutes nothing
disturbed the deep silence but the faint ticking of a clock. After a
while a bell rang from an inner room, a door opened, and a gentleman
appeared, whose interview with Doctor Lagarde had terminated.
His opinion of the sitting was openly expressed in one emphatic
word--"Humbug!" No contribution dropped from his hand as he passed the
money-box on his way out.

The next number (being Number Fifteen) was called by the elderly
servant, and the first incident occurred in the strange series of events
destined to happen in the Doctor's house that night.

One after another the three men who had been waiting rose, examined
their cards under the light of the lamp, and sat down again surprised
and disappointed.

The servant advanced to investigate the matter. The numbers possessed
by the three visitors, instead of being Fifteen, Sixteen and Seventeen,
proved to be Sixteen, Seventeen and Eighteen. Turning to the stranger
who had arrived the last, the servant said:

"Have