ir money."

"You are very happy," I replied, "in your manner of attracting the
public. Your costume is elegant, your chariot is superb, and your valet
and music are sure to draw."

"Thank you for your compliment, Mr. B., but I have not forgotten your
Buffalo-hunt, your Mermaid, nor your Woolly Horse. They were a good
offset to my rich helmet and sword, my burnished gauntlets and gaudy
cuirass. Both are intended as advertisements of something genuine, and
both answer the purpose."

After comparing notes in this way for an hour, we parted, and his last
words were:

"Mr. B., I have got a grand humbug in my head, which I shall put in
practice within a year, and it shall double the sale of my pencils.
Don't ask me what it is, but within one year you shall see it for
yourself, and you shall acknowledge Monsieur Mangin knows something of
human nature. My idea is magnifique, but it is one grand secret."

I confess my curiosity was somewhat excited, and I hoped that Monsieur
Mangin would "add another wrinkle to my horns." But, poor fellow! within
four months after I bade him adieu, the Paris newspapers announced his
sudden death. They added that he had left two hundred thousand francs,
which he had given in his will to charitable objects. The announcement
was copied into nearly all the papers on the Continent and in Great
Britain, for almost everybody had seen or heard of the eccentric pencil
maker.

His death caused many an honest sigh, and his absence seemed to cast a
gloom over several of his favorite halting-places. The Parisians really
loved him, and were proud of his genius.

"Well," people in Paris would remark, "Mangin was a clever fellow. He
was shrewd, and possessed a thorough knowledge of the world. He was a
gentleman and a man of intelligence, extremely agreeable and witty. His
habits were good; he was charitable. He never cheated anybody. He always
sold a good article, and no person who purchased from him had cause to
complain."

I confess I felt somewhat chagrined that the Monsieur had thus suddenly
taken "French leave" without imparting to me the "grand secret" by which
he was to double the sales of his pencils. But I had not long to mourn
on that account; for after Monsieur Mangin had been for six months--as
they say of John Brown--"mouldering in his grave" judge of the
astonishment and delight of all Paris at his reappearance in his native
city in precisely the same costume and carriage as formerly, an