, the slope
lending its aid, the channels had drained into one, and by this time a
black rivulet was crawling downward to the margin. One or two readers
near had risen, and now eyed me like examining magistrates. I waited for
an outbreak, motionless, dazed, muttering words that did not mend the
case at all. "What a pity! Oh, I'm so sorry! If I had only known--" The
student of the Early Text stood motionless as I. Together we watched the
ink trickle. Suddenly, summoning his wits together, he burrowed with
feverish haste in his morocco writing-case, pulled out a sheet of
blotting-paper, and began to soak up the ink with the carefulness of a
Sister of Mercy stanching a wound. I seized the opportunity to withdraw
discreetly to the third row of tables, where the attendant had just
deposited my books. Fear is so unreasoning. Very likely by saying no more
about it, by making off and hiding my head in my hands, like a man
crushed by the weight of his remorse, I might disarm this wrath. I tried
to think so. But I knew well enough that there was more to come. I had
hardly taken my seat when, looking up, I could see between my fingers the
little man standing up and gesticulating beside one of the keepers. At
one moment he rapped the damning page with his forefinger; the next, he
turned sidewise and flung out a hand toward me; and I divined, without
hearing a word, all the bitterness of his invective. The keeper appeared
to take it seriously. I felt myself blushing. "There must be," thought I,
"some law against ink-stains, some decree, some regulation, something
drawn up for the protection of Early Texts. And the penalty is bound to
be terrible, since it has been enacted by the learned; expulsion, no
doubt, besides a fine--an enormous fine. They are getting ready over
there to fleece me. That book of reference they are consulting is of
course the catalogue of the sale where this treasure was purchased. I
shall have to replace the Early Text! O Uncle Mouillard!"

I sat there, abandoned to my sad reflections, when one of the attendants,
whom I had not seen approaching, touched me on the shoulder.

"The keeper wishes to speak to you."

I rose up and went. The terrible reader had gone back to his seat.

"It was you, sir, I believe, who blotted the folio just now?"

"It was, sir."

"You did not do so on purpose?"

"Most certainly not, sir! I am indeed sorry for he accident."

"You ought to be. The volume is almost unique; and th