CHAPTER LXXXIV.

The Conjurer and his Associate execute a Plan of Vengeance against certain Infidels who pretend to despise their Art; and Peregrine achieves an Adventure with a young Nobleman.

By these means, the whole variety of characters undisguised passed, as it were, in review before the confederates, who, by divers ingenious contrivances, punished the most flagrant offenders with as much severity as the nature of their plan would allow. At length they projected a scheme for chastising a number of their own acquaintance, who had all along professed the utmost contempt for the talent of this conjurer, which they endeavoured to ridicule in all companies, where his surprising art was the subject of discourse; not that they had sense and discernment enough to perceive the absurdity of his pretensions, but affected a singularity of opinions, with a view of insulting the inferior understandings of those who were deceived by such an idle impostor.