"One," I inferred, "who will give his discovery to the world."
"Oh, more than that," explained Let.i.tia, "this dear, old, white-haired--"
"Egyptologist," I broke in.
"Publisher," she said, with spirit, "has promised him to start a magazine and make him editor--a scientific magazine devoted solely to Egyptology, and called _The Obelisk_."
"Well, well, well, well," I said. "We must congratulate the little man.
Perhaps you may even be impelled to recon--"
"Now, Bertram," began Let.i.tia, in that tone and manner I knew of old--so I put on my hat, and, freeing Robin to likelier pleasures, we drove at once to "the" Mills Hotel. Let.i.tia"s address-book had named the street, which she thought unkempt and cluttered and noisy for an editor to live in, though doubtless he had wished to be near his desk.
"Is Mr. Hiram Ptolemy in?" inquired Let.i.tia.
"I"ll see," said the clerk, consulting his ledgers.
He returned at once.
"There is no one here of that name, madam."
"Strange!" she replied. "He was here--let me see--but two weeks ago."
"No madam," he said. "You must mean the other Mills Hotel."
"Is there another Mills Hotel?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied. "Hotel number--"
"I _thought_," said Let.i.tia, "this place seemed--"
She glanced about her.
"But," said I, "the address is of this one."
"True," she replied. "Did you look in the P"s?" she inquired, sweetly.
"Why, no; in the T"s. You said--"
"But it"s spelled with a P," she explained. "P-t-o-l--"
Then her face reddened.
"Never mind," she said. "You are right--quite right. It _is_ the other hotel. But can you tell me, please, if Mr. Hiram De Lancey Percival lives here?"
The clerk smiled broadly.
"Oh yes," he said. "Mr. Percival does, but he"s out at present. You will find him, however, at this address."
He wrote it down for her and she took it nervously.
"Thank you," she said, glancing at it. "Don"t be silly, Bertram. Yes, it"s the publisher"s. Let us go. Good-day, sir."
It was not a large publisher"s, we discovered, for the place was a single and dingy store-room in a small side street. Its walls were shelved, filled from the floor to the very ceiling--volume after volume, sets upon sets, most of them shopworn and bearing the imprints of by-gone years. Between the shelves other books, equally old and faded, and offered for sale at trifling prices, lay on tables in that tempting disarray and dust which hints of treasures overlooked and waiting only for recognition--always on the higher shelf, or at the bottom of the other pile. The window was filled with encyclopaedias long outgrown by a wiser world, and standing beside them, and looking back towards the store-room"s farther end, was a melancholy vista of discarded and forgotten literature.
"Who buys them?" asked Let.i.tia.
"Who wrote them?" I replied.
A bell had tinkled at our entrance, but no one came to us, so we wandered down one narrow aisle till we reached the end. And there, at the right, in an alcove hitherto undiscernable, and at an old, worm-eaten desk dimly lighted by an alley window, sat our old friend Ptolemy, writing, and unaware of our approach. It was the same Hiram, we observed, though a little shabbier, perhaps, and scraggier-bearded than of old, but the same little, blinking scientist we had known, in steel-bowed spectacles, scratching away in a rickety office-chair. He was quite oblivious of the eyes upon him, lost, doubtless, in some shadowy pa.s.sage of Egyptian lore.
I coughed slightly, and he turned about, peering in amazement.
"Miss Primrose! Dr. Weatherby! I do believe!" he exclaimed, and, dropping his pen, staggered up to us and shook our hands, his celluloid cuffs rattling about his meagre wrists and his eyes watering with agitation behind his spectacles.
"_You_--in New York!" he piped. "I--why, I"m astounded--I"m astounded--but delighted, too--de_light_ed to see you both! But you mustn"t stand."
I looked curiously at Let.i.tia as he brought us chairs, setting them beside his desk. She was a little flushed, but very gracious to the little man.
"Miss Primrose," he said, fidgeting about her, "allow me--allow me,"
offering what seemed to be the stabler of the wooden seats. She had accepted it and was about to sit, when he stopped her anxiously with a cry, "Wait!--wait, I beg of you!" and replaced it with his own. His was an elbow chair whose sagging leathern seat had been reinforced with an old green atlas, its pasteboard cover still faintly decorated with a pictured globe.
Seating himself again beside his desk, he turned to us beaming with an air of host, and listened with many nervous twitchings and furtive glances at Let.i.tia, while I explained our presence there.
"It"s a grand journey--a grand journey, Miss Primrose," he declared. "I only wish I were going, too."
"Tell us," said Let.i.tia, kindly, "about _The Obelisk_. Is the first number ready yet?"
He sat up blithely, wetting his lips, and with that odd mannerism which recalled his visit to Gra.s.sy Ford, he touched with one finger the tip of his celluloid collar, and thrust out his chin.
"Almost," he said. "It"s almost ready. It"ll be out soon--very soon now--it"ll be out soon. I"ve got it here--right here--right here on the desk."
He touched fondly the very ma.n.u.script we had surprised him writing.
"That"s it," he said. "_The Obelisk_, volume one, number one."
"And the great stone of Iris-Iris?" queried Let.i.tia.
He half rose from his chair, and exclaimed, excitedly, pointing to a drawer in the paper-buried desk:
"Right there! The cut is there!--cut of the inscription, you know. It"s to be the frontispiece. Here: page one--my story--story of the translation and how I made it, and what it means to the civilized world.
Don"t fail to read it!"
He wiped his gla.s.ses.
"When," I asked, "will it be out?"
"Soon," he replied. "Soon, I hope. Not later than the fall."
"That"s some time off yet," I remarked.