But there is a Providence for such as he, as also for drunkards and babes; and there, right before him, was an ancient bow window of bottle-glass panes; the name of the shop in old Georgian script; the information that it had been founded in 1805; and, behind the glass, two telescopes, a microscope, a clock, several watches, and a sextant of immense age.
The Professor went in.
"What I want ... ah!" he said. Then his eye fell upon the very thing he desired. It lay there in a glass case, and the owner of the shop, no younger than his customer, brought it out with a palsied hand.
"That's it," said the Professor, nodding genially. "That's it. That's what I want. That's it." Slipping it into his pocket, he made for the door, nodding good day.
"Hi! Mister! That'll be five guineas," said the ancient. Oh! vileness of avaricious age! He had seen his client coming out by the garden gate by the Great House, he had noted guilty haste, he had noted academic idiocy, and he charged accordingly.
"Oh, yes! Of course ... ah! What! Five guineas? ... five guineas! FIVE GUINEAS!"
It was a sickener. But the wages of Sin is Death. He must have it—or something of the sort. And he must have it now, before Humphrey got home. Sin will not wait.
Deplorable moral lapse of Professor de Bohun
(pronounced Boon).