do not bungle in the very beginning."

"I bungle not," answered Achmet, sternly. "Forty years ago, on the
third of next month, you, Jasper Southdown Kingsland, were born beneath
this very roof."

"Right!" he said. "You know my age. But go on."

"Your boyhood you passed here--quiet, eventless years--with a
commonplace mother and a dull, proud father. At ten, your mother went
to her grave. At twelve, the late Sir Noel followed her. At thirteen,
you, a lonely orphan, were removed from this house to London in the
charge of a guardian that you hated. Am I not right?"

"You are. Pray go on."

"At fourteen, you went to Rugby to school. From that time until you
attained your majority your life passed in public schools and
universities, harmlessly and monotonously enough. At twenty-one, you
left Cambridge, and started to make the grand tour. You were tolerably
clever; you were young and handsome, and heir to a noble inheritance.
Your life was to be the life of a great and good man--a benefactor to
the human race. Your memory was to be a magnificent memento for a
whole world to honor. Your dreams were wild, vague, and impracticable,
and ended in--nothing."

Sir Jasper Kingsland listened and stared like a man in a dream. Achmet
the Astrologer continued to read the palm with a fixed, stony face.

"And now the lines are crossed, and the trouble begins. As usual, a