e open door, first there was a sound like drinking,
then an awful cry, "Potash again!" and then a heavy soft thud, as if
you had knocked over a bolster stuffed with lead, mum.'

Through the brown glimmer of dawn (it was about ten A.M.) I hurried
to Leonora's chamber. She was dressed, and came out. 'What do you
advise?' I asked.

'Send for Mr. Urmson, the eminent lawyer, at once,' said she, 'he is
used to this kind of thing. Nothing like taking Counsel's opinion. But
first let me knock the door open!' She applied her magnificent white
shoulder to the door, which flew into splinters.

There was not a trace of the mummy, but there, in a deprecatory
attitude, stood the philosopher Asher![27]

[27]
Please pronounce _Assha_.--ED.

CHAPTER XI.

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?'

'[Greek: Ten d' apameibomenos prosephe koruthaiolos] 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 AEons 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.'

'You speak,' he said tenderly, 'with the haste of youth and
inexperience. When you have lived as long as I have, you will know
better. Hearken to my story.

'Three or four thousand years ago