“Very much in the style!” exclaimed Dubois, his eyes glistening with delight. “They are identical! Where did you get them?”
“Our foreman sent them down to me,” rejoined Hyppolite. “We purchase enormous quantities of old parchment, and frequently a few painted letters are found in the mass. Our manager, in compliance with my request, cuts them out and reserves them for me.”
“Then the vellum from which they were cut is here?”
“Yes, it is, uncle; but why are you so agitated?”
Dubois briefly related the circumstances of the robbery; and wiping the cold perspiration from his brow, he added: “But all is safe now! I would not walk twenty paces to recover all the silver-clasped volumes, if I can only hold once more the musty palimpsest which contains that priceless treasure,—The Lost Books of Livy!”
The flush faded from Hyppolite’s ruddy cheek. “There is not a moment to be lost!” exclaimed he. “Follow me, dear uncle.”
Away he ran across court-yards, through long warehouses filled with merchandise, and up flights of stairs, two steps at a bound. Dubois, highly excited, followed with the activity of youth. They reached a small room adjoining an enormous mass of lofty chimneys, from which heavy columns of smoke rolled away before the wind.
“Where is the lot of old vellum that came this morning?” gasped Hyppolite, all out of breath.
A man who was busy checking off accounts, asked, “Do you mean the lot from which you cut those two letters?”
“Yes, yes,” replied Hyppolite. “Where is it? Where is it? It is very important!”