“The barleycorns of your native North having been partially cleaned out of your hair by contact with the two enchanted steeds—­the steed you bridled without a head, and the steed that ran away with you without legs,” said the Ancient—­“we have brought you hither for examination.  We might have gone much farther with the physical tests:  we might have forced you, at the present session, to relieve yourself of those envelopes considered indispensable by all Europeans beneath your own latitude, and in our presence perform the sword-dance.”

“So be it,” said the disciple, executing a galvanic figure with his legs, his countenance still like marble.

“If we demanded the head of your best friend, would you bring it in?”

“I am the countryman of Lady Macbeth,” replied the red nose.  “Give me the daggers.”

“We would fain dispense with that proof, necessarily painful to a man of such evident sensibility as yours.”  The red nose bowed.  “What is your name?”

He pronounced it—­apparently MacMurtagh.

“In future, among us, you are named Meurtrier.”

“MacMeurtrier,” muttered the Scotchman in a tone of abstraction.

“No!  Meurtrier unadulterated.  Your business?”

“I am a homoeopathic doctor.”

“Are you a believer in homoeopathy?  Be careful:  remember that the Ancient of the Mountain hears what you say.”

The Scot held up his hand:  “I believe in the learned Hahnemann, and in Mrs. Hahnemann, no less learned than himself; but,” he added, “homoeopathy is a science still in its baby-clothes.  I have invented a system perfectly novel.  In mingling homoeopathy with vegetable magnetism the most encouraging results are obtained, as may be observed daily in the villa of Dr. Van Murtagh, near Edinburgh—­”

“Enough!” cried the Ancient:  “circulars are not allowed here.  Forget nothing, Meurtrier!  And how were you inspired with the pious ambition of becoming our brother?”

“At the hotel table:  it was the young clerks from the wine-houses.  I mentioned that I wished to be a Free Mason, and the lodge of Epernay—­”

“Silence!  The words you use, lodge and Free Mason, are most improper in this temple, which is that of the Pure Illumination, and nothing less.  Will you remember, Meurtrier?”

“MacMeurtrier,” muttered the novice again.  The last proofs were now tried upon him, called the “five senses.”  For that of hearing he was made to listen to a jewsharp, which he calmly proclaimed to be the bagpipe; for that of touch, he was made to feel by turns a live fish, a hot iron and a little stuffed hedgehog.  The last he took for a pack of toothpicks, and announced gravely, “It sticks me.”  The laughs broke out from all sides, even from behind the bottle-shelves.

Alas! on this occasion the laugh was not altogether on my side of that fatal honeycomb!

[Illustration:  The traveler’s rest.]