<SPAN name="XI">
</SPAN>
<p class="chapter">
CHAPTER XI.</p>
<p class="head">
THE WIZARD UNBOSOMS.</p>
<p>'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?'</p>
<p>Την δ απαμεβομενος προσεΦη κορυθαιολος 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?'</p>
<p>'No, sir, you are in 30 Acacia Gardens,' replied Leonora, severely. '<i>Why</i>, permit me to repeat myself, do I find you here, an unbidden guest?'</p>
<p>'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.'</p>
<p>'My feelings!' exclaimed the proud girl, indignantly, 'just as if—— But answer me!'</p>
<p>'When a man has seen as much of life as I have,' answered the magician, 'when the Æons 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.'</p>
<p>'At least I can compel you to tell us
<i>
Where is the mummy?</i>' said Leonora.</p>
<p>'I am, or lately was, that mummy,' said the wizard, haughtily; then, drawing himself up to his full height, he added, 'I am the
<span class="sc">
Real Jambres</span>! Old Gooseberry Jamberries,' he added solemnly. 'No other is genuine!'</p>
<p>'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.'</p>
<p>'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.</p>
<p>'Three or four thousand years ago—for what is time?—I was the authorised magician at the Court of Ptolemy Patriarchus. I had a rival—the noted witch Theodolitê. In an evil hour she won me by a show of false affection, and, taking advantage of my passion, mummified me alive. To this I owe my remarkable state of preservation at an advanced age.
<i>
Très bien conservé</i>,' he added fatuously.</p>
<p>'But she only half accomplished her purpose. By some accident, which has never been explained, and in spite of the stress of competition, she had purchased
<i>
pure
</i>
salts of potash for the execution of her fell purpose in place of
<i>
adulterated
</i>
salts of soda.</p>
<p>'To this I owe it that I am now a living man; and in a moment——'</p>
<p>A certain stiffness of demeanour, which we had noticed, but ascribed to pride, worked an unspeakable change in the mage. As we looked at him
<i>
he hardened into our cheap mummy</i>.</p>
<p>'Here's a jolly go!' said Leonora, her mind submerged in terror.</p>
<p>I sprang to the bell, '<i>Soda water at once!</i>' I cried, and the
<i>
slavî
</i>
appeared with the fluid. We applied it to the parched lips of the mummy, and Jambres was himself again.</p>
<p>'Now will you tell me?' I asked, when he had been given a cigarette and made comfortable, 'why we found you—I mean the mummy—under the Three Balls?'</p>
<p>''Twas a pledge,' he replied. 'When my resources ran low, and my rent was unpaid, the landlady used to take advantage of my condition and raise a small sum on me.'</p>
<p>All seemed now explained; but Leonora was not yet satisfied.</p>
<p>'You have——' she began.</p>
<p>'Yes, a strawberry mark,' he replied wearily, 'on the usual place!'</p>
<p>'The quest is accomplished,' I said.</p>
<p>'Nay,' replied Jambres, to give him his real name. 'There is still the adventure of the Siege Perilous.'</p>
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