xpect out of London? There was just enough, you know, to
pack the broken carvings, and get the estimates, and pay the printer's
bill, and after that there wasn't a halfpenny left. There the things
are, as I said before. We have nowhere else to put them--nobody in the
new town cares about accommodating us--we're in a lost corner--and
this is an untidy vestry--and who's to help it?--that's what I want to
know."

My anxiety to examine the register did not dispose me to offer much
encouragement to the old man's talkativeness. I agreed with him that
nobody could help the untidiness of the vestry, and then suggested that
we should proceed to our business without more delay.

"Ay, ay, the marriage-register, to be sure," said the clerk, taking a
little bunch of keys from his pocket. "How far do you want to look
back, sir?"

Marian had informed me of Sir Percival's age at the time when we had
spoken together of his marriage engagement with Laura. She had then
described him as being forty-five years old. Calculating back from
this, and making due allowance for the year that had passed since I had
gained my information, I found that he must have been born in eighteen
hundred and four, and that I might safely start on my search through
the register from that date.

"I want to begin with the year eighteen hundred and four," I said.

"Which way after that, sir?" asked the clerk. "Forwards to our time or
backwards away from us?"

"Backwards from eighteen hundred and four."

He opened the door of one of the presses--the press from the side of
which the surplices were hanging--and produced a large volume bound in
greasy brown leather. I was struck by the insecurity of the place in
which the register was kept. The door of the press was warped and
cracked with age, and the lock was of the smallest and commonest kind.
I could have forced it easily with the walking-stick I carried in my
hand.

"Is that considered a sufficiently secure place for the register?" I
inquired. "Surely a book of such importance as this ought to be
protected by a better lock, and kept carefully in an iron safe?"

"Well, now, that's curious!" said the clerk, shutting up the book
again, just after he had opened it, and smacking his hand cheerfully on
the cover. "Those were the very words my old master was always saying
years and years ago, when I was a lad. 'Why isn't the register'
(meaning this register here, under my hand)--'why isn't it kept