ered 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!_

Deeply impressed with the belief (laugh at it if you will) that I was
in the presence of a being of more than mortal endowments, I was
withdrawing, when my glance fell on his weird familiars,--two tailless
cats. This prodigy made me shudder, and I said, in tones of the deepest
awe and sympathy, 'Poor puss!'

'Yes,' came the strange voice from within the tent, 'they are _born_
without tails. I bred them so; it hath taken many centuries and much
trouble, but at last I have triumphed. Once, too, I reared a breed of
dogs with two tails, but after a while they became a proverb for pride;
Nature loathed them, and they perished. [Greek: Chaire!] _Vale!_'[22]

[22]
I have consulted the authorities at the British Museum, who
tell me these are the Greek and the Latin words for 'Don't you
think you had better go? Get out!'--ED.

This, though not understood, of course, by Pellmelli, was as good as an
invitation to withdraw, so I induced the old man to come away,
promising the magician I would return on the morrow.

Who was this awful man, to whom centuries were as moments, whose very
correspondence, as I had noticed, came through the Dead Letter Office,
and who spoke in the tongues of the dead past?

CHAPTER IX.

THE POWER OF HE.

Next day Leonora, the Boshman, and I returned to the home of the mage.
He stood before us, a tall thin figure enwrapped in yellowish, strange
garments, of a singular and perfumed character--spicy in fact--which
produced upon me a feeling which I cannot attempt to describe, and
which I can only vaguely hint at by saying that the whole form conveyed
to me the notion of _something wrapped up_.[23]

[23]
The public will