“The other end first, sir,” growled Matt; and in a rather confused way Septimus made the requisite alteration, and then sucked and puffed so vigorously that he extinguished the light, which he re-lit at the fire. But the next moment his face changed from one of comical resignation to a state of intense wonder, as old Matt, under the excuse of helping himself to a light, was turning over some leaves of a heap of waste-paper on a chair by the door.
Suddenly Septimus dashed the lighted paper upon the table, hurriedly extinguishing it with trembling hands, but not without oversetting his glass of spirits-and-water.
“What is the matter? Have you burnt yourself?” cried Miss Tollicks.
“Is it, sir?” cried old Matt, reaching across the table.
But Septimus Hardon did not move for a few seconds, but stood with his hands pressed down over the roughly-folded piece of paper, into which the spirits-and-water was now soaking, as it made a way between his fingers.
“Why didn’t I give you a splint!” exclaimed Miss Tollicks, whose mind was full of goose-grease, starch-powder, and cotton-wool. “Is it very bad?”
But Septimus Hardon did not speak, only slowly and with palsied hands unfolded the soaked paper; but even then he could hardly read it for the mist that swam before his eyes. Old Matt, though, not to be behindhand, pulled out his glasses, and stretched out his hand to reach the paper; but Septimus shrank back, and then read with difficulty, for the ink had begun to look blurred with the wet:
S. Hardon,
Medicine and at-dance 2.
And that was all. Septimus turned it over carefully and found a list of names, but no other entry; there was a figure, part of a date evidently, at one edge, but it was charred, and as he touched it and held it towards the window it crumbled away into brown tinder. He read the entry again and again, and then looked at the ashes of the paper to see if anything could be made of them. Then, as if for a forlorn hope, he turned to his hostess, saying in a strange, husky voice:
“The date’s burnt off. Where did you get this?”