THE WIZARD UNBOSOMS.
'Sir,' said Leonora, 'may I request you to inform me why we find you, rampaging an unbidden guest, in the chamber which is sacred to hospitality?'
Την δ απαμεβομενος προσεΦη κορυθαιολος Asher,' answered the magician, dreamily. 'Do my senses deceive me, or—that voice, that winsome bearing—am I once more with Helen on the walls of Ilion?'
'No, sir, you are in 30 Acacia Gardens,' replied Leonora, severely. 'Why, permit me to repeat myself, do I find you here, an unbidden guest?'
'To say that I never guessed you'd find me here,' answered the magician, 'might seem a mere trifling with language and with your feelings.'
'My feelings!' exclaimed the proud girl, indignantly, 'just as if—— But answer me!'
'When a man has seen as much of life as I have,' answered the magician, 'when the Æons are to him merely as drops in a bucket which he will never kick—and when he suffers,' he added mournfully, 'from attacks of multiplex personality, he recognises the futility of personal explanations.'
'At least I can compel you to tell us Where is the mummy?' said Leonora.
'I am, or lately was, that mummy,' said the wizard, haughtily; then, drawing himself up to his full height, he added, 'I am the Real Jambres! Old Gooseberry Jamberries,' he added solemnly. 'No other is genuine!'
'You are playing, sir, on our credulity,' replied the girl; 'no living man can be a mummy,—outside of the House of Lords or the Royal Academy.'