abruptly, and without any introduction, told me that as a stranger--I had
been very wrong in spending two months in Mantua without paying a visit
to the natural history collection belonging to his father, Don Antonio
Capitani, commissary and prebendal president.

"Sir," I answered, "I have been guilty only through ignorance, and if you
would be so good as to call for me at my hotel to-morrow morning, before
the evening I shall have atoned for my error, and you will no longer have
the right to address me the same reproach."

The son of the prebendal commissary called for me, and I found in his
father a most eccentric, whimsical sort of man. The curiosities of his
collection consisted of his family tree, of books of magic, relics, coins
which he believed to be antediluvian, a model of the ark taken from
nature at the time when Noah arrived in that extraordinary harbour, Mount
Ararat, in Armenia. He load several medals, one of Sesostris, another of
Semiramis, and an old knife of a queer shape, covered with rust. Besides
all those wonderful treasures, he possessed, but under lock and key, all
the paraphernalia of freemasonry.

"Pray, tell me," I said to him, "what relation there is between this
collection and natural history? I see nothing here representing the three
kingdoms."

"What! You do not see the antediluvian kingdom, that of Sesostris and
that of Semiramis? Are not those the three kingdoms?"

When I heard that answer I embraced him with an exclamation of delight,
which was sarcastic in its intent, but which he took for admiration, and
he at once unfolded all the treasures of his whimsical knowledge
respecting his possessions, ending with the rusty blade which he said was
the very knife with which Saint Peter cut off the ear of Malek.

"What!" I exclaimed, "you are the possessor of this knife, and you are
not as rich as Croesus?"

"How could I be so through the possession of the knife?"

"In two ways. In the first place, you could obtain possession of all the
treasures hidden under ground in the States of the Church."

"Yes, that is a natural consequence, because St. Peter has the keys."

"In the second place, you might sell the knife to the Pope, if you happen
to possess proof of its authenticity."

"You mean the parchment. Of course I have it; do you think I would have
bought one without the other?"

"All right, then. In order to get possession of that knife, the Pope
would, I have no doubt, make a