irrepressible
giggle.

"If you please, sir," she began--but could get no farther.

My father was in a towering passion directly.

"Is the girl mad?" he shouted. "What is the meaning of this buffoonery?"

"Oh, sir--if you please, sir," ejaculated Mary, struggling with terror
and laughter together, "it's the gentleman, sir. He--he says, if you
please, sir, that his name is Almond Pudding!"

"Your pardon, Mademoiselle," said a plaintive voice. "Armand
Proudhine--le Chevalier Armand Proudhine, at your service."

Mary disappeared with her apron to her mouth, and subsided into distant
peals of laughter, leaving the Chevalier standing in the doorway.

He was a very little man, with a pinched and melancholy countenance, and
an eye as wistful as a dog's. His threadbare clothes, made in the
fashion of a dozen years before, had been decently mended in many
places. A paste pin in a faded cravat, and a jaunty cane with a
pinchbeck top, betrayed that he was still somewhat of a beau. His scant
gray hair was tied behind with a piece of black ribbon, and he carried
his hat under his arm, after the fashion of Elliston and the Prince
Regent, as one sees them in the colored prints of fifty years ago.

He advanced a step, bowed, and laid his card upon the table.

"I believe," he said in his plaintive voice, and imperfect English,
"that I have the honor to introduce myself to Monsieur Arbuthnot."

"If you want me, sir," said my father, gruffly, "I am Doctor Arbuthnot."

"And I, Monsieur," said the little Frenchman, laying his hand upon his
heart, and bowing again--"I am the Wizard of the Caucasus."

"The what?" exclaimed my father.

"The Wizard of the Caucasus," replied our visitor, impressively.

There was an awkward pause, during which my father looked at me and
touched his forehead significantly with his forefinger; while the
Chevalier, embarrassed between his natural timidity and his desire to
appear of importance, glanced from one face to the other, and waited for
a reply. I hastened to disentangle the situation.

"I think I can explain this gentleman's meaning," I said. "Monsieur le
Chevalier will perform to-morrow evening in the large room of the Red
Lion Hotel. He is a professor of legerdemain."

"Of the marvellous art of legerdemain, Monsieur Arbuthnot," interrupted
the Chevalier eagerly. "Prestidigitateur to the Court of Sachsenhausen,
and successor to Al Hakim, the wise. It is I, Monsieur, that have invent
the fa