success number one was scored. It was the old-fashioned Dutch
lamp-lighter of brass, to which I touched the match, that called out the
first note of admiration from the strangers; and as I woke up candle
after candle, in its quaint brass stick, the first notes rose to a
chorus. What a lovely room! What walls, what dear old blue-and-white
china beasts, what a wonderful fireplace, with handles to hold on by as
you stood and warmed yourself! What chairs, what chests of drawers, what
pewter tankards! If this were a typical room of a Leiden undergraduate,
the Leiden undergraduates were lucky men.

I had to explain that it was hardly fair to call it typical; that only a
man with money and a love for picking up old things would have quarters
like these; still, the lodgings were typical of Leiden.

When the ladies had exhausted their adjectives, they grew curious
concerning their host. I told them that the man was absent, because this
happened to be the night of his Promotie dinner, but that I was free to
do the honors.

"Well, I'm sick with envy of the fellow," said Starr, "and I for one
daren't trust myself any longer, especially on an empty stomach, among
his pewters and blue beasts and brasses. We'd better go away and have
dinner."

"You needn't go away," said I, jerking an old-fashioned bell-rope, and
drawing the screen aside. Behind it, was what I had hoped would be
there--a table laid for five, with plenty of nice glass and silver, and
banked with pink and white roses. As everybody exclaimed at the sight,
an inner door opened and two waiters from the Levedag, who had been
biding their time for my signal, appeared in answer to the bell.

"It's black magic," said Aunt Fay. "I believe these men are genii, and
you've got the lamp in your pocket. How I _wish_ I hadn't left Tibe at
the hotel. He would have loved this, poor darling."

[Illustration: _"It's black magic," said Aunt Fay_]

"Dinner is served, sir," announced one of the genii; and laughing, I
offered the Chaperon my arm.

"But it _can't_ be for us," objected Miss Rivers.

"It's for no one else," said I.

"How can we eat the man's things, when he's never seen us, and we've
never seen him?" Miss Van Buren appealed to Starr. But it was I who
answered.

"You see him now," I confessed. "These are my rooms. I lend them to my
cousin, but I've kept the right to use them. As for the dinner, it's my
dinner, and it will be a humiliation to me if you refuse to eat