mportant adventure
befell. This time the temptation assumed a different shape.

Coming briskly homewards one fine frosty morning after having left a
note at the Vicarage, I saw a bill-sticker at work upon a line of dead
wall which at that time reached from the Red Lion Inn to the corner of
Pitcairn's Lane. His posters were printed in enormous type, and
decorated with a florid bordering in which the signs of the zodiac
conspicuously figured Being somewhat idly disposed, I followed the
example of other passers-by, and lingered to watch the process and read
the advertisement. It ran as follows:----

MAGIC AND MYSTERY! MAGIC AND MYSTERY!

* * * * *

M. LE CHEVALIER ARMAND PROUDHINE, (of Paris) surnamed

THE WIZARD OF THE CAUCASUS,

Has the honor to announce to the Nobility and Gentry of Saxonholme and
its vicinity, that he will, to-morrow evening (October--, 18--),
hold his First

SOIREE FANTASTIQUE

IN

THE LARGE ROOM OF THE RED LION HOTEL.

* * * * *

ADMISSION 1s. RESERVED SEATS 2s. 6d.

_To commence at Seven_.

N.B.--_The performance will include a variety of new and surprising
feats of Legerdemain never before exhibited_.

_A soiree fantastique_! what would I not give to be present at a _soiree
fantastique_! I had read of the Rosicrucians, of Count Cagliostro, and
of Doctor Dee. I had peeped into more than one curious treatise on
Demonology, and I fancied there could be nothing in the world half so
marvellous as that last surviving branch of the Black Art entitled the
Science of Legerdemain.

What if, for this once, I were to ask leave to be present at the
performance? Should I do so with even the remotest chance of success? It
was easier to propound this momentous question than to answer it. My
father, as I have already said, disapproved of public entertainments,
and his prejudices were tolerably inveterate. But then, what could be
more genteel than the programme, or more select than the prices? How
different was an entertainment given in the large room of the Red Lion
Hotel to a three-penny wax-work, or a strolling circus on Barnard's
Green! I had made one of the audience in that very room over and over
again when the Vicar read his celebrated "Discourses to Youth," or Dr.
Dunks came down from Grinstead to deliver an explosive lecture on
chemistry; and I had always seen the reserved seats filled by the best
families in the neighborhood