l this was very exciting, and I waited breathlessly
till the Wizard should appear.

He came at last; but not, surely, our dapper little visitor of
yesterday! A majestic beard of ashen gray fell in patriarchal locks
almost to his knees. Upon his head he wore a high cap of some dark fur;
upon his feet embroidered slippers; and round his waist a glittering
belt patterned with hieroglyphics. A long woollen robe of chocolate and
orange fell about him in heavy folds, and swept behind him, like a
train. I could scarcely believe, at first, that it was the same person;
but, when he spoke, despite the pomp and obscurity of his language. I
recognised the plaintive voice of the little Chevalier.

"_Messieurs et Mesdames_," he began, and took up the wand to emphasize
his discourse; "to read in the stars the events of the future--to
transform into gold the metals inferior--to discover the composition of
that Elixir who, by himself, would perpetuate life, was in past ages the
aim and aspiration of the natural philosopher. But they are gone, those
days--they are displaced, those sciences. The Alchemist and the
Rosicrucian are no more, and of all their race, the professor of
Legerdemain alone survives. Ladies and gentlemen, my magic he is simple.
I retain not familiars. I employ not crucible, nor furnace, nor retort.
I but amuse you with my agility of hand, and for commencement I tell you
that you shall be deceived as well as the Wizard of the Caucasus can
deceive you."

His voice trembled, and the slender wand shivered in his hand. Was this
nervousness? Or was he, in accordance with the quaintness of his costume
and the amplitude of his beard, enacting the feebleness of age?

He advanced to the front of the platform. "Three things I require," he
said. "A watch, a pocket-handkerchief and a hat. Is there here among my
visitors any person so gracious as to lend me these trifles? I will not
injure them, ladies and gentlemen. I will only pound the watch in my
mortar--burn the _mouchoir_ in my lamp, and make a pudding in the
_chapeau_. And, with all this, I engage to return them to their
proprietors, better as new."

There was a pause, and a laugh. Presently a gentleman volunteered his
hat, and a lady her embroidered handkerchief; but no person seemed
willing to submit his watch to the pounding process.

"Shall nobody lend me the watch?" asked the Chevalier; but in a voice
so hoarse that I scarcely recognised it.

A sudden thought st