When I awoke, night had fallen without, and I was alone. The fire still burnt brightly, and what other light was needed came from an electric candelabra hanging from the centre of the room. I looked around and noticed for the first time that the walls were lined with book-shelves extending from the ceiling to the floor. With some curiosity I approached and scanned the titles. They were all the works of writers eminent on earth, some dead, some living—mostly dead. One book, which it surprised me greatly to find there, I took down and opened. But beneath the title on the inner leaf was written in manuscript the words, “With the author’s compliments,” and then there came the signature. I put it back with some surprise and took another, and it also contained those words. Then I took others, and they likewise had similar writing in them. At length my eyes lit on a Bible.
“Surely this will not be with ‘compliments,’” I thought, and took it down.
But there the writing was just as in all the others, except that no signatures were given.
I passed through from book to book, and before each the self-same words appeared, till I came to the Gospels. And here the wording altered. It was simply “From the writer.” From that I passed on to the Revelation; there the old wording had returned.
I closed the book and left it on a table and walked to the fireplace.
“Someone here or somewhere has a sense of humor,” I thought. “Or I am in a strange yet vivid dream from which I cannot wake.”
I was not alone long. Shortly the door opened and Plucritus entered.
His entrance surprised me, yet on second thoughts it seemed natural enough.
“I was sorry not to come along with you,” he said in his customary easy way. “But I have made the most haste I could; yet even now my stay is only for a short time.”
His eye rested on the Bible.