was wrought, which proved to the professor’s satisfaction that he was free from sin.  The magician then recited divers incantations, drew a circle on the floor, and placed the boy, who was rather frightened, in the middle of the circle.  Other incantations were then muttered.  The next thing the magician did, was to pour a dark liquid, like ink, into the hollow of the boy’s hand; he then burned something which produced a smoke like incense, but bluer and thicker, and then he desired the boy to look into the palm of his hand, and to tell him what he saw.  The boy did as he was bid, but said he saw nothing.  The magician bade him look again; this second time the boy started back in terror, and said he saw in the palm of his hand a man with a bundle.  “Look again,” said the magician, “and tell me what there is in the bundle.”

“I cannot see,” said the boy, renewing the investigation, “but stop,” he added after a moment, “there’s a hole in the handkerchief, and I see the ends of some silver spoons peeping out!”

“Look again—­look again, and tell me what you see.”

“He is running away between my fingers!” replied the boy.

“Before he goes describe his dress, person, and countenance.”

The boy looked again into his hand.

“Ay, tell us how he is dressed,” cried Mr. S——­, who had become more than half serious, and anxious to know who had purloined his spoons.

The boy turned his head immediately and said,

“He is gone!”

“To be sure he is,” said the necromancer angrily, “the Christian gentleman has destroyed the spell; tell us how he was dressed?”

“The man with a bundle had on a Frank coat and a Frank hat,” said the boy unhesitatingly—­and here his revelations ended.

Though much mollified at the interruption of which he had been the cause, Mr. S——­ had the satisfaction to learn that his plate had not been stolen by an unbelieving Egyptian or Arab, but by a Christian and a Frank, and, with his friend Mr. R——­ to enjoy the conviction, that in the singular scene they had witnessed there could be no collusion, as the innocent boy (they were certain) had never seen the necromancer until summoned to the ——­ consulate to make a looking-glass of his hand.

Some recent French publication has trumped up a story about Bonaparte and the magicians, when that extraordinary man was in Egypt, and separated from the fair Josephine, who was then, though his wife, supposed to be the object of his amorous affections; and they make the conqueror—­the victor of the battle of the Pyramids, turn pale, and then yellow with jealousy, at the revelations which were made to him by the wise men of Egypt.  But besides the characters of Napoleon and of Josephine, I have other grounds (not necessary to explain here) for believing that the whole of this incident, is but a parody of the following well known story.

An honest Neapolitan trader who happened to be for some months on the coast of Africa, about Tunis, and in Egypt, became all at once anxious to know something of the proceedings of a buxom wife he had left behind him at the town of the Torre del Greco, not far from the city of Naples, and was persuaded one night to consult the magicians.