"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.