"Know me!" repeated the other, "How did you find me out? I would have told you without hesitation, but you never asked my name--no more did Waif." "I know a great many things," replied the charlatan. "In many ways you could not understand, unless you had studied, as I have, the hidden mysteries of Heaven and Earth, and of places under the Earth. I know that the Garnets lost titles and lands for the--for the Black-bird--we will say. I know that the last of them would leap from that bed, bandages and all, to burn powder and draw steel if the yellow beak did but so much as whistle from its garden in the South." "You learned all that in the 'Annual Register' or the 'North Britain,'" said John Garnet, proudly, "but how did you guess I belonged to the family who have been so loyal, so constant, and proved themselves such--fools?" Katerfelto smiled. "Fools," he replied, "are my special study. As the worm feeds the blackbird, so the fool feeds the philosopher. You are no fool notwithstanding, and yet I know all about you. There was a supper-party t'other night--a jest--an altercation--a duel--without witnesses--without witnesses, mark you. When a man is killed under those circumstances, the law sometimes brings it in--murder!" John Garnet turned pale. The truth of his host's surmises affected him no less than the consideration of the danger he had incurred. It did not strike him that Katerfelto's guesses, however shrewd, were the mere offspring of analogy and observation. A wounded man at midnight inferred an after-supper brawl, while the fact of his staggering into Deadman's Alley faint from loss of blood, alone and unassisted, argued the absence of seconds, one of whom would doubtless have conveyed his principal to a place of safety, while the identity of that principal must long since have become the talk of this town. "You know everything," he murmured. "Everything--I wish you could tell me whether the poor fellow I ran through the brisket is alive." For reasons of his own the charlatan was anxious to impress his patient with a conviction of his powerful character and superior intelligence. "Not so," said he, with an air of extreme frankness. "I have no knowledge, for I have taken no trouble to learn. If I can spare the time to-night, when the moon goes down, I will set those to work who shall bring me all the information I require in less than forty-eight hours." John Garnet, though scarcely a model Christian, was a good Catholic. He crossed himself and faltered a feeble protest against the employment of evil spirits or unorthodox powers of the air. "I had rather not get well at all," said he, "than be cured by magic or witchcraft! I would leave the house this minute if I believed you were more than a doctor! I'll wager a fair stake and risk my life any day, but I won't sit down to play for my soul!"