CHAPTER XVIII
I RECEIVE A SHOCK
The professor fumblingly sought through his pockets, and producing a pair of spectacles with phenomenally large lenses, adjusted them shakily.
He bent over the pajamas eagerly.
"Impossible! And yet, it is, it is!" he muttered. "I would know the weave among a thousand. It is hers undoubtedly, undoubtedly—the lost silk of Si-Ling-Chi! How comes it here?"
He glared around rather wildly at each of us in turn. Without waiting for a reply, he whisked back to the pajamas, and fishing out a thick magnifying lens, scrutinized the garments closely. It seemed that he would certainly nod his big head off its jolly hinge; and his quick side glances at Billings and myself, together with his growling and muttering, just reminded me of a dog with a bone, by Jove!
I stared at Billings and Billings stared at me, and then he slipped over to the divan upon which I dropped, completely exhausted, dash it, from standing so long.
"Whose did he say?" he whispered.
"Celia something," I answered. "Dash it, I didn't catch her surname. Oh, I say, you know, this is awful!"