He advanced to the front of the platform. "Three things I require," he said. "A watch, a pocket-handkerchief and a hat. Is there here among my visitors any person so gracious as to lend me these trifles? I will not injure them, ladies and gentlemen. I will only pound the watch in my mortar--burn the _mouchoir_ in my lamp, and make a pudding in the _chapeau_. And, with all this, I engage to return them to their proprietors, better as new." There was a pause, and a laugh. Presently a gentleman volunteered his hat, and a lady her embroidered handkerchief; but no person seemed willing to submit his watch to the pounding process. "Shall nobody lend me the watch?" asked the Chevalier; but in a voice so hoarse that I scarcely recognised it. A sudden thought struck me, and I rose in my place. "I shall be happy to do so," I said aloud, and made my way round to the front of the platform. At the moment when he took it from me, I spoke to him. "Monsieur Proudhine," I whispered, "you are ill! What can I do for you?" "Nothing, _mon enfant_," he answered, in the same low tone. "I suffer; _mais il faut se résigner_." "Break off the performance--retire for half an hour." "Impossible. See, they already observe us!" And he drew back abruptly. There was a seat vacant in the front row. I took it, resolved at all events to watch him narrowly. Not to detail too minutely the events of a performance which since that time has become sufficiently familiar, I may say that he carried out his programme with dreadful exactness, and, after appearing to burn the handkerchief to ashes and mix up a quantity of eggs and flour in the hat, proceeded very coolly to smash the works of my watch beneath his ponderous pestle. Notwithstanding my faith, I began to feel seriously uncomfortable. It was a neat little silver watch of foreign workmanship--not very valuable, to be sure, but precious to me as the most precious of repeaters. "He is very tough, your watch, Monsieur," said the Wizard, pounding away vigorously. "He--he takes a long time ... _Ah! mon Dieu!_" He raised his hand to his head, uttered a faint cry, and snatched at the back of the chair for support. My first thought was that he had destroyed my watch by mistake--my second, that he was very ill indeed. Scarcely knowing what I did, and quite forgetting the audience, I jumped on the platform to his aid. He shook his head, waved me away with one trembling hand, made a last effort to articulate, and fell heavily to the ground.