'Now it is my turn to ask you a few easy questions.
'Who sitteth on the throne of Hokey, Pokey, Winky Wum, the Monarch of the Anthropophagi?
'Have the Jews yet come to their land, or have the owners of the land gone to the Jews?
'Doth Darius the Mede yet rule, or hath his kingdom passed to the Bassarids?'
As Pellmelli was utterly floored by these inquiries (which indicated that the sorcerer had been for a considerable time out of the range of the daily papers), I answered them as well as I could.
When his very natural curiosity had been satisfied by a course of Mangnall's Questions, I ventured to broach my own business.
He said he did not deal in mummies himself, though he had a stuffed crocodile very much at my service; but would I call to-morrow, and bring Leonora? He added that he had known of our coming by virtue of his secret art of divination. 'And thyself,' he added, 'shalt gaze without extra charge in the Fountain of Knowledge.'
Thrusting a withered yellow hand out of the mystic tent, he pointed to a table where stood a small circular dish or cup of white earthenware, containing some brown milky liquid.
'Gaze therein!' said the sorcerer.
I gazed—There was a Stranger in the tea!