He brought out the objurgation with amazing vigor; then stopped and stared gloomily before him.
"Well?" said Jerry. "What are you waiting for? More?"
"More!" exploded the collector, disgust and indignation in his face. "Man, I've got hold of a collection that is all but unique! More! Don't you see—I can't get away with it! Piece by piece I could run it out of the country, but I don't dare to leave anything behind me. If only my men were at hand—but they're not, they're not. One's off the track in the T road, and the other's in America."
He passed his hand before his eyes with a gesture so expressive that it was even more impassioned than his tone.
Taberman was moved, both by the enthusiasm of this man for his work and by the exciting romance of the finding of this treasure. He knew vaguely of the laws that forbade the taking of works of art out of Italy and Greece, but he had no conception that they were strictly enforced. It gave him a new sensation to be thus brought in contact with the actual working of a statute which was aimed to prevent a man from removing his own possessions from one country to another. He had been too well brought up under a high protective tariff to have any moral scruples about smuggling anything. A Mugwump atmosphere had acted upon the natural inclination of youth to defy authority, and had bred in Jerry the feeling that smuggling, however little its true nature was appreciated in high places, was really in its essence a maligned virtue. In the present instance, moreover, the boyish feeling that what one owns is his to do what he chooses with despite all fiats of principalities, potentates, and powers, helped to make the idea of this especial case of an attempt to defy the laws one of particular merit. He gave himself eagerly to considering how it could be done.
"Can't you take your traps to Naples, and ship 'em from there?" he at last demanded of the archæologist.
"You don't understand, I'm afraid," replied the other. "My reputation in itself compels me to lie close. Besides that, there's the awkward problem of the octroi and the export examinations. I couldn't take the things into Naples without running into the one, or out of it without getting afoul of the other. They'd be no end sharp in examining anything I tried to pass. I'm hideously notorious in Italy." His pride in this last statement was entirely evident, but Jerry was impressed by the deeds of archæological daring which were implied in such a reputation. "I simply can't get these things away without help," he continued. "I've written and telegraphed to every mortal I can count on,—there are only five or six of them,—and not one of them can help me out just now. Meanwhile I starve on eggs and polenta, under the suspicious eyes of the custodi—damn 'em! They'd have got me a week ago if they'd had any brains."
"Upon my word," cried Jerry, the idea suddenly striking him for the first time, "it's extraordinary you should tell me all this, and I a stranger."
"I count on your helping me," responded Mr. Wrenmarsh in keenly incisive tones.
"My helping you!" ejaculated Tab in amazement. "What in the world have I to do with the business?"