“An octavo, in fairly good condition?” he asked.
“Yes, yes!” cried Enderby eagerly. “Where is it? What did you do with it?”
“It was in Latin—very false Latin.” The four men leaned forward, breathless. “Oh, I remember. It slipped from my pocket and fell into the river as I was crossing the ferry to Jersey.”
There was a dead, flat, stricken silence. Then Average Jones turned hollow eyes upon Warren.
“Professor,” he said, with a rueful attempt at a smile, “what’s the past participle, passive, plural, of the Latin verb, ‘to sting’?”
CHAPTER X. THE ONE BEST BET
“Morrison has jammed the Personal Liberty bill through,” said Waldemar, scrawling a head on his completed editorial, with one eye on the clock, which pointed to midnight.
“That was to be expected, wasn’t it?” asked Average Jones.
“Oh, yes,” replied the editor-owner of the Universal in his heavy bass. “And now the governor announces he will veto it.”
“Thereby bringing the whole power of the gambling ring down on him like an avalanche.”