table, and was stolen in the confusion."

I hung my head. I could have wept for vexation.

My father laughed sardonically.

"Well, Master Basil," he said, "the loss is yours, and yours only. You
won't get another watch from me, I promise you."

I retorted angrily, whereat he only laughed the more; and then we went
in to breakfast.

Our morning meal was more unsociable than usual. I was too much annoyed
to speak, and my father too preoccupied. I longed to inquire after the
Chevalier, but not choosing to break the silence, hurried through my
breakfast that I might run round to the Red Lion immediately after.
Before we had left the table, a messenger came to say that "the conjuror
was taken worse," and so my father and I hastened away together.

He had passed from his trance-like sleep into a state of delirium, and
when we entered the room was sitting up, pale and ghost-like, muttering
to himself, and gesticulating as if in the presence of an audience.

"_Pas du tout_," said he fantastically, "_pas du tout, Messieurs_--here
is no deception. You shall see him pass from my hand to the _coffre_,
and yet you shall not find how he does travel."

My father smiled bitterly.

"Conjurer to the last!" said he. "In the face of death, what a mockery