We were industrious. It is needless that I should tarry with the incidents of our search. At daybreak we had not yet quite finished, and we had not yet struck any thing that bore the slightest resemblance to the composition in question.
“But little remains,” said Merivale. “In another five minutes we will have found it; or my first hypothesis was true.”
“Your first hypothesis?” I inquired.
“Yes—that it was original—a lucubration of your own.”
“Oh, that, I tell you, isn’t possible. I’m not vain enough to imagine that I could improvise in such style, thank you.”
“Well, we won’t enter into a dispute, at any rate not till our present line of investigation is exhausted. Back to the saddle!”
For a space we were silent.
“Eh bien, mon brave!” cried Merivale at length. “There goes the last of my half,” and he sent a sheet of music fluttering through the air.
“And here is the last of mine,” I responded, laying down Schumann’s Warum.
“And we are still in the dark.”