Meanwhile the gentleman with the thistle-down hair sat in an arm-chair on the opposite side of the fireplace, directing at the other man a look of such extreme malevolence and irritation as made Stephen fear for the man’s life. Yet the moment the gentleman with the thistle-down hair beheld Stephen, he became all delight, all affability. “Ah, there you are!” he cried. “How noble you look in your kingly accoutrements!”

There happened to be a large mirror standing opposite the door. For the first time Stephen saw himself with the crown, sceptre and orb. He looked every inch a king. He turned to look at the man at the table to discover how he bore with the sudden appearance of a black man in a crown.

“Oh! Do not concern yourself about him!” said the gentleman with the thistle-down hair. “He can neither see nor hear us. He has no more talent than the other one. Look!” He screwed up a piece of paper and threw it energetically at the man’s head. The man did not flinch or look up or appear to know any thing about it.

“The other one, sir?” said Stephen. “What do you mean?”

“That is the younger magician. The one lately arrived in London.”

“Is it indeed? I have heard of him, of course. Sir Walter thinks highly of him. But I confess I have forgotten his name.”

“Oh! Who cares what his name is! What matters is that he is just as stupid as the other one and very near as ugly.”

“What?” said the magician, suddenly. He turned away from his book and looked around the room with a slightly suspicious air. “Jeremy!” he called out very loudly.

A servant put his head around the door, but did not trouble himself so far as to come into the room. “Sir?” he said.

Stephen’s eyes opened very wide at this lazy behaviour –it was a thing he would never have allowed in Harley-street. He made a point of staring very coldly at the man to shew him what he thought of him before he remembered that the man could not see him.

“These London houses are shockingly built,” said the magician. “I can hear the people in the next house.”

This was interesting enough to tempt the servant called Jeremy all the way into the room. He stood and listened.

“Are all the walls so thin?” continued the magician. “Do you suppose there can be something wrong with them?”

Jeremy knocked on the wall which divided the house from its neighbour. It responded with as dull and quiet a sound as any stout, well-built wall in the kingdom. Making nothing of this, he said, “I do not hear any thing, sir. What were they saying?”

“I believe I heard one of them call the other stupid and ugly.”

“Are you sure, sir? It is two old ladies that live upon that side.”

“Ha! That proves nothing. Age is no guarantee of any thing these days.”