"How! Have I been mistaken? The adventure of the key was then a trick of yours, and not of the Armenian? You say this key fell from my pocket?"
"You accidentally dropped it in taking out your purse, and I seized an opportunity, when no one noticed me, to cover it with my foot. The person of whom you bought the lottery-ticket acted in concert with me. He caused you to draw it from a box where there was no blank, and the key had been in the snuff-box long before it came into your possession."
"I understand you. And the monk who stopped me in my way and addressed me in a manner so solemn."
"Was the same who, as I hear, has been wounded in the chimney. He is one of my accomplices, and under that disguise has rendered me many important services."
"But what purpose was this intended to answer?"
"To render you thoughtful; to inspire you with such a train of ideas as should be favorable to the wonders I intended afterwards to show you."
"The pantomimical dance, which ended in a manner so extraordinary, was at least none of your contrivance?"
"I had taught the girl who represented the queen. Her performance was the result of my instructions. I supposed your highness would be not a little astonished to find yourself known in this place, and (I entreat your pardon, prince) your adventure with the Armenian gave me reason to hope that you were already disposed to reject natural interpretations, and to attribute so marvellous an occurrence to supernatural agency."
"Indeed," exclaimed the prince, at once angry and amazed, and casting upon me a significant look; "indeed, I did not expect this."
[Neither did probably the greater number of my readers. The circumstance of the crown deposited at the feet of the prince, in a manner so solemn and unexpected, and the former prediction of the Armenian, seem so naturally and obviously to aim at the same object that at the first reading of these memoirs I immediately remembered the deceitful speech of the witches in Macbeth:—