The voice behind me now said with a sudden sort of explosion, "I wrote it."
I turned again, and, catching both his hands as a drowning man is said to catch a straw, I wrung them earnestly and long. "A great work!" I called out to him, as if he were deaf. "A very great work!" And not well knowing what I did, I further shouted to Miss Appleby, who was passing us: "He wrote it! Pecan Nuts!"
"Hup, hup," said the little man. "Mustard Plasters."
Little as I owe Miss Appleby, I must always hold her memory in gratitude for her coming forward at this extreme moment.
"Of course it is Mustard Plasters!" she said, with delightful sweetness; "and you must write your name in my copy, dear Professor Egghorn."
He extended an eager hand for the volume.
"It is in my trunk," she continued promptly; "and your signature will make a unique gem of what is already a precious treasure. And you, dear Professor Totts, when I am unpacked, you will surely not refuse me the same honor? Professor Totts, you know," she added to me, "has proved that Cleopatra was a man."
"Then who wrote Pecan Nuts?" I whispered to her hastily.
"He hasn't come yet," she hastily whispered back.