No doubt it lay somewhere on the table, and was stolen in the confusion." I hung my head.

I could have wept for vexation.
My father laughed sardonically.
"Well, Master Basil," he said, "the loss is yours, and yours only.

You won't get another watch from me, I promise you." I retorted angrily, whereat he only laughed the more; and then we went in to breakfast.
Our morning meal was more unsociable than usual.

I was too much annoyed to speak, and my father too preoccupied.

I longed to inquire after the Chevalier, but not choosing to break the silence, hurried through my breakfast that I might run round to the Red Lion immediately after.
Before we had left the table, a messenger came to say that "the conjuror was taken worse," and so my father and I hastened away together.
He had passed from his trance-like sleep into a state of delirium, and when we entered the room was sitting up, pale and ghost-like, muttering to himself, and gesticulating as if in the presence of an audience.
"_Pas du tout_," said he fantastically, "_pas du tout, Messieurs_--here is no deception.