uired to mourn and bury Cave
in the elaborate style the dignity of an old Seven Dials inhabitant
demands, they had appealed to a friendly fellow-tradesman in Great
Portland Street. He had very kindly taken over a portion of the stock at
a valuation. The valuation was his own and the crystal egg was included
in one of the lots. Mr. Wace, after a few suitable consolatory
observations, a little off-handedly proffered perhaps, hurried at once
to Great Portland Street. But there he learned that the crystal egg had
already been sold to a tall, dark man in grey. And there the material
facts in this curious, and to me at least very suggestive, story come
abruptly to an end. The Great Portland Street dealer did not know who
the tall dark man in grey was, nor had he observed him with sufficient
attention to describe him minutely. He did not even know which way this
person had gone after leaving the shop. For a time Mr. Wace remained in
the shop, trying the dealer's patience with hopeless questions, venting
his own exasperation. And at last, realising abruptly that the whole
thing had passed out of his hands, had vanished like a vision of the
night, he returned to his own rooms, a little astonished to find the
notes he had made still tangible and visible upon his untidy table.

His annoyance and disappointment were naturally very great. He made a
second call (equally ineffectual) upon the Great Portland Street dealer,
and he resorted to advertisements in such periodicals as were likely to
come into the hands of a _bric-a-brac_ collector. He also wrote letters
to _The Daily Chronicle_ and _Nature_, but both those periodicals,
suspecting a hoax, asked him to reconsider his action before they
printed, and he was advised that such a strange story, unfortunately so
bare of supporting evidence, might imperil his reputation as an
investigator. Moreover, the calls of his proper work were urgent. So
that after a month or so, save for an occasional reminder to certain
dealers, he had reluctantly to abandon the quest for the crystal egg,
and from that day to this it remains undiscovered. Occasionally,
however, he tells me, and I can quite believe him, he has bursts of
zeal, in which he abandons his more urgent occupation and resumes the
search.

Whether or not it will remain lost for ever, with the material and
origin of it, are things equally speculative at the present time. If
the present purchaser is a collector, one would have expected