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IMPORTANT business kept the editor of these
pages from visiting his “philosopher, friend, and
guide” for two days after the interview last recorded.
Very early the third morning did I turn my steps
towards his dwelling, hoping to hear more from his
lips of that wisdom which for a year had been to me
sweeter than the honeycomb and more strengthening
than the flesh of kids.

To my sorrow he was not in his house. There was
no smoke ascending from his chimney, the doors of
the house were locked, and the place had a desolate,
abandoned look which appalled me.

“Where are you, my friend?” I cried; but the
only answer was the echo which mocked me.

While going about the dwelling to find some way
of effecting an entrance, a carriage approached, from
which four men alighted.

They were singular appearing men, of a style that
I had never seen before.

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“Are you Abou ben Adhem?” demanded one,
seizing me by the collar.

“Bah!” said another, “let him go. That idiot is
not the man we are after.”

I stood as a man distraught. I did not like the
rough handling; the application to me of the word
“idiot” hurt me more; but the fact that my friend
was not only gone, but that he was sought for by
such men, pained me more than all.

“Indeed,” I replied, “I am not Abou ben Adhem.
Would that I were that great and good man! Can
you tell me, gentle sirs, where I can find him?”

“That is what we would give something handsome
to know ourselves,” replied the first speaker. “The
cuss got wind of our coming for him, and has cut
his lucky. But we will find what he has left behind.”

And without any ceremony he broke down the
front door of the house, and going through the sitting-room
to the door of the sacred laboratory, he
applied his sacrilegious foot to that, and entered with
as little ceremony as I would use in entering the barroom
of the Eagle Hotel.

“I was shocked at the way in which they ransacked
that room. The stuffed alligator was thrown down
and kicked to pieces; the owl was treated in the
same manner; and the skulls and thigh-bones with
which the room was garnished were kicked about as
though they were footballs.

“But when they came to the furnace they became
intensely interested. They threw down the back
arch, and under it, in a cunningly-constructed

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receptacle, they found many sets of dies, which I regret to
say were of the coin of the country, and none of
them above the denomination of five cents.

“Taking these things with them they went away,
leaving me alone.

“I opened Abou's desk and found everything in it
in confusion, as though the occupant had decamped
in great haste, and had not had time to arrange his
matters properly. From papers left behind him,
mostly letters, I discovered how grievously I had
been imposed upon.

“It was not Abou ben Adhem who had occupied
this house and this room, nor a Persian sage, nor a
Persian at all. The real name of the imposter
was Zephaniah Scudder, and he was a native of the
State of Maine. There in his desk I found a wig of
long white hair, and a false beard of the same material,
and on the floor were his robe of black, his
leathern belt, and his slippers. I read letters that
revealed the history of the man.

“All that a cursory perusal of a few letters a year
before (which I mentioned in the preface to this volume)
indicated, these letters confirmed. He had been
everything by turns (except an honest man), and
nothing long. He had taught dancing, singing, writing;
he had been a horse-tamer, a veterinary surgeon,
a dentist, a showman, a politician, an editor in a
small way; he had preached, practised medicine,
speculated in lands, and in everything else; he had
married wives in a dozen places; in short, he had
done everything that was disreputable or

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semi-disreputable, and had finally embarked in counterfeiting
the smallest coin, but two, that our Government
makes.

One note hurriedly written on wrapping-paper
accounted for his hasty departure. It read thus: —

“Get out quick. The cops will be onto you tomorrer.”

His accomplices (for of course he had confederates)
were never discovered, and he was never seen
in the place again.

I was deceived in him, but I do not feel that his residence
here was altogether without use to me. True,
I would like to get back the five hundred dollars I
lent him, and I would be better pleased if I had not
intrusted one thousand dollars to him to invest in
railroad stocks, since I have learned that the certificates
he gave me were forgeries; but, after all, I benefited
by him and do not complain. Wisdom is better
than money, and wisdom I received of him without
stint. I am, however, sorry for those who lent him
money without getting wisdom; their experience
must be their compensation.

“He has gone from my gaze like a beautiful
dream.” I have his wig, his beard, his robe, his
belt, and his words. I am not wholly bereft.