He started, and tried to cover his volume with a newspaper, but I had seen it. It was a cook book.
“That's a queer kind of fiction you're mulling over,” I remarked.
“I'm looking up a recipe for stuffed eggs,” said the Goblin, without a quiver. “Our Common Room steward does them so poorly.”
“Well, don't let me interrupt you,” I said. I sat down in a corner of the room with a volume of the Britannica. When I next looked up the Goblin was gone.
As usual, I wasted my time with the encyclopedia. I got interested in the articles on Wages, Warts, Weather, Wordsworth, and Worms. By the time I got to Wolverhampton it was closing time. I did just seize the information that the town was founded in 996 by Wulfruna, widow of the Earl of Northampton. Then I had to leave.
I got back to the Boar about ten-thirty. The coffee-room was empty. The landlord said that Whitney and Forbes were out, but that Mr. Carter had gone upstairs.
Falstaff and I were rooming together, and when I went up I found him reading in bed.
“Hello, Wulfruna!” he said, as I came in.
Evidently he, too, had been reading up some history. Just as I got into bed he fell asleep and his book dropped to the floor with a thump. I crept quietly across the room and picked it up. It was “Memorials of Old Staffordshire,” by Philip Kent, F.S.A., the very copy that I had looked for at the Library. I skimmed over it and then put it carefully back by Falstaff's bedside. Was he on the antiquarian trail, too? I began to realize that these rivals of mine would take some beating.
The next morning (Sunday) I found a note waiting for me on the breakfast table. Three indignant Scorpions were weighing it, studying the handwriting, and examining the stationery like three broken-hearted detectives.