explosive lecture on chemistry; and I had always seen the reserved seats filled by the best families in the neighborhood. Fully persuaded of the force of my own arguments, I made up my mind to prefer this tremendous request on the first favorable opportunity, and so hurried home, with my head full of quite other thoughts than usual.
My father was sitting at the table with a mountain of books and papers before him. He looked up sharply as I entered, jerked his chair round so as to get the light at his back, put on his spectacles, and ejaculated:--
"Well, sir!"
This was a bad sign, and one with which I was only too familiar. Nature had intended my father for a barrister. He was an adept in all the arts of intimidation, and would have conducted a cross-examination to perfection. As it was, he indulged in a good deal of amateur practice, and from the moment when he turned his back to the light and donned the inexorable spectacles, there was not a soul in the house, from myself down to the errand-boy, who was not perfectly aware of something unpleasant to follow.
"Well, sir!" he repeated, rapping impatiently upon the table with his knuckles.
Having nothing to reply to this greeting, I looked out of the window and remained silent; whereby, unfortunately. I irritated him still more.
"Confound you, sir!" he exclaimed, "have you nothing to say?"
"Nothing," I replied, doggedly.
"Stand there!" he said, pointing to a particular square in the pattern of the carpet. "Stand there!"
I obeyed.
"And now, perhaps, you will have the goodness to explain what you have been about this morning; and why it should have taken you just thirty-seven minutes by the clock to accomplish a journey which a tortoise--yes, sir, a tortoise,--might have done in less than ten?"
I gravely compared my watch with the clock before replying.
"Upon my word, sir," I said, "your tortoise would have the advantage of me."
"The advantage of you! What do you mean by the advantage of you, you affected puppy?"
"I had no idea," said I, provokingly, "that you were in unusual haste this morning."
"Haste!" shouted my father. "I never said I was in haste. I never choose to be in haste. I hate haste!"
"Then why … "
"Because you have been wasting your time and mine, sir," interrupted he. "Because I will not permit you to go idling and vagabondizing about the village."
My sang froid was gone directly.
"Idling and vagabondizing!" I repeated angrily. "I have done nothing of the kind. I defy you to prove it. When have you known me forget that I am a gentleman?"
"Humph!" growled my father, mollified but sarcastic; "a pretty gentleman--a gentleman of sixteen!"
"It is true,"' I continued, without heeding the interruption, "that I lingered for a moment to read a placard by the way; but if you will take the trouble, sir, to inquire at the Rectory, you will find that I waited a quarter of an hour before I could send up your letter."
My father grinned and rubbed his hands. If there was one thing in the world that aggravated him more than another, it was to find his fire opposed to ice. Let him, however, succeed in igniting his adversary, and he was in a good humor directly.
"Come, come, Basil," said he, taking off his spectacles, "I never said you were not a good lad. Go to your books, boy--go to your books; and this evening I will examine you in vegetable physiology."
Silently, but not sullenly, I drew a chair to the table, and resumed my work. We were both satisfied, because each in his heart considered himself the victor. My father was amused at having irritated me, whereas I was content because he had, in some sort, withdrawn the expressions that annoyed me. Hence we both became good-tempered, and, according to our own tacit fashion, continued during the rest of that morning to be rather more than usually sociable.
Hours passed thus--hours of quiet study, during which the quick travelling of a pen or the occasional turning of a page alone disturbed the silence. The warm sunlight which shone in so greenly through the vine leaves, stole, inch by inch, round the broken vases in the garden beyond, and touched their brown mosses with a golden bloom. The patient shadow on the antique sundial wound its way imperceptibly from left to right, and long slanting threads of light and shadow pierced in time between the branches of the poplars. Our mornings were long, for we rose early and dined late; and while my father paid professional visits, I devoted my hours to study. It rarely happened that he could thus spend a whole day among his books. Just as the clock struck four, however, there came a ring at the bell.
My father settled himself obstinately in his chair.
"If that's a gratis patient," said he, between his teeth, "I'll not stir. From eight to ten are their hours, confound them!"
"If you please, sir," said Mary, peeping in, "if you please, sir, it's a gentleman."
"A stranger?" asked my father.
Mary nodded, put her hand to her mouth, and burst into an irrepressible giggle.
"If you please, sir," she began--but could get no farther.
My father was in a towering passion directly.
"Is the girl mad?" he shouted. "What is the meaning of this buffoonery?"
"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.
There was an awkward pause, during which my father looked at me and touched his forehead significantly with his forefinger; while the Chevalier, embarrassed between his natural timidity and his desire to appear of importance, glanced from one face to the other, and waited for a reply. I hastened to disentangle the situation.
"I think I can explain this gentleman's meaning," I said. "Monsieur le Chevalier will perform to-morrow evening in the large room of the Red Lion Hotel. He is a professor of legerdemain."
"Of the marvellous art of legerdemain, Monsieur Arbuthnot," interrupted the Chevalier eagerly. "Prestidigitateur to the Court of Sachsenhausen, and successor to Al Hakim, the wise. It is I, Monsieur, that have invent the famous tour du pistolet; it is I, that have originate the great and surprising deception of the bottle; it is I whom the world does surname the Wizard of the Caucasus. Me voici!"
Carried away by the force of his own eloquence, the Chevalier fell into an attitude at the conclusion