But, as if struck by a sudden thought, he turned back, recrossed the library and entered another room, closing the door behind him.
His eyes seemed to sparkle with joy. He took a key suspended from his watch-chain, opened a little chest, and drew from it with religious respect a flat and oblong cedar box. It contained a vellum manuscript in quarto. The forms of the written characters were those used in the tenth century; the titles and capital letters were gilt, and ornamented with vignettes.
After contemplating this manuscript with looks as eager, uneasy, and insatiable as those with which a miser gloats over his treasure, Doctor Sphex replaced the box, and carefully closed the chest which contained this precious specimen of caligraphy. Reassured of the safety of his dearest treasure, he went out to take his accustomed walk.
In passing by the housekeeper's room, he said to her, in an impatient tone:
"If the French Marquis comes to the charge again, whether I am at home or not, always tell him that I am absent."
"He has been again this morning, sir."
"That's good, that's good! What need have I to see this silly coxcomb, this spark, this beau, who, they say, Non pudet ad morem discincti vivere Nattœ."[2]
The old man directed his steps to a little valley situated behind the faubourgs, called the Vale of the Lindens.
Even as certain disdainfully exclusive amateurs acknowledge but one school of painting, and admire but one master of that school, so Doctor Sphex was infatuated with the Satires of Persius, and ranked him above all other ancient Latin poets.
Not only did he possess all the editions of this poet, from the most rare, the edition Princeps de Brescia (1470), to the most modern, that of Homs (1770), but he had, at a high price, secured the manuscript of which we have spoken, and which he considered an inestimable treasure.