replied in some
less candid fashion, that he might have heard the voice again. But taken
by surprise as he was, he had lost his self-possession for a moment. If
he were not mistaken the voice was one which he had heard before. He
racked his memory for some minutes, and suddenly started as this thought
entered his mind.

"Were he not sick in Philadelphia, I should say that was Mitchel." He
followed across the room after the person, but he saw him go out into
the hall, and by the time that he himself reached there, there were at
least a dozen similar costumes in a group. He looked them over
carefully, but there was nothing by which he could pick out the special
man for whom he was searching. He went up to one at hap-hazard, and
whispered to him:

"Sesame."

"Sesa--what!" came the reply, in a strange tone.

"Don't you know our password?" asked the detective.

"Password? Rats!! We are not real thieves"; and with a laugh he turned
away. Mr. Barnes felt himself powerless, and besides recalled the fact
that whilst he followed this will-o'-the-wisp he was not keeping an eye
upon Ali Baba. Hurrying back into the ball-room, he soon found him,
though he had parted from Scheherezade.

About eleven o'clock, a blare upon a cornet attracted the attention of
the frolicking throng. A man dressed as a Genius announced that the time
had arrived for the entertainment. Immediately every one went into the
Aladdin's Cave room, except Scheherezade and the Sultan, and a heavy
pair of satin curtains were dropped, so that they hid the Cave from the
Sultan's Palace.

The Sultan lay down upon a divan near the curtains, and Scheherezade sat
beside him upon a satin cushion on the floor. Behind the curtains, the
committee busied themselves forming a tableau, those not needed being
hidden from view behind still another pair of curtains, which were of a
gloriously beautiful blue, and served as a rich background. Many of the
guests, knowing that their tableau would not be reached for some time,
passed around and stood crowding about the doorways of the hall, to get
a view of the first pictures.

Soft music was begun, when at a signal the electric lights in the Palace
room were extinguished, and the front pair of yellow satin curtains were
drawn aside showing a tableau of Sindbad the Sailor. Mr. Barnes peeping
from behind the red curtain noticed that as Scheherezade sat on her low
cushion, in the now darkened Palace room, the rays of an electri