"`That was written by the gentleman with the brown eyes. It is his mother's name,' he said; and I felt cold all down my spine. The man who had showed me his paper had drawn his own slip when they were shuffled together in the bowl. The conjurer knew that too. He pointed at him and said: `You have written your own opinion of me in the paper you hold. "_I don't believe in any of this trickery_."' He paused for a moment, and then said quietly: `You are prejudiced, sir; but you will learn wisdom. A year from to-day you will understand my secrets.' He drew himself up, and his eyes flashed; he turned to us, each in turn, and said a few, short, prophetic words. There was a poor barrister among us, a clever fellow, but he had no luck; he was in a very tight place at that time. He said to him: `on the 2nd of February, 1862, you will put your foot on the first step of the ladder which leads to fortune.' That was five years later on. The poor fellow smiled and said: `can't you hurry it on a bit?' The man who was dining us came next. He didn't like his share. It sounded cryptic enough to the rest of us, but _he_ understood. You could see that by his face. My own message--" He stopped short, laughing softly, but with an utter absence of embarrassment, and Vanna's eager glance bespoke her curiosity. "My own message was equally cryptic, but I did _not_ understand. I don't understand it now. I have not been too fortunate in money matters, and it refers to that, no doubt. He said: `you will seek fortune, and find it not. Where the rose blooms beneath the palm, there awaits your treasure.'" "`Where the rose blooms beneath the palm!'" Vanna repeated the words in a breathless whisper. "But how thrilling--how exciting! What could he mean? Aren't you anxious; aren't you curious? Don't you go about daily waiting to see what will happen?" Mr Gloucester laughed with boyish abandon. "Rather not! It is a good eight years ago, and it has less chance of being fulfilled at this moment than it has ever had before, for I have said goodbye to the land of palms. I should never think of it again but for the fact,"--his face sobered swiftly--"that two out of those five prophecies did, as a matter of fact, come true. Three out of the six men who were there that evening I have never seen again. I can't tell you what happened in their cases, but by the most absolute chance I ran up against the barrister fellow two years ago. We talked about our last meeting, and he said: "`You remember what that fellow said to me? It came true to the very hour. I had to speak in my first good brief that morning. I made a hit, carried the case, got a heap of kudos, and have never looked back from that hour.' The second man was the one who had said he did not believe in such trickery. He--" "Yes?" "He died. Within a year from our meeting."