“108 for 104.”
“The devil!” I said; “the Elzevirs played in bad luck with their figures that year. They were wise not to choose it for the printing of their logarithms.”
“Wonderful!” continued Theodore’s friend. “If I had listened to these people here, I should have believed that you were at the point of death.”
“A third of a line,” replied Theodore, whose voice was failing by degrees.
“I know your story, but it is nothing in comparison with mine. Think what I lost, eight days ago, in one of those bastard, nameless sales which are advertised only by a placard on the door,—a Boccaccio of 1527,[13] as beautiful as your own, the binding of Venetian vellum, with the pointed a’s proved throughout, and not a leaf repaired.”
All Theodore’s faculties concentrated in one idea.
“Are you very sure that the a’s were pointed?”
“As pointed as the iron tip of a lancer’s halberd.”
“It was then, doubtless, the ‘Vintisettine’ itself.”
