don't forget that the most impatient man in all
Ireland is waiting for you."

Not a word of explanation followed these extraordinary instructions.

The head clerk set forth on his errand, with his mind dwelling on the
national tendencies to conspiracy and assassination. His employer was
not a popular person. Sir Giles had paid rent when he owed it; and,
worse still, was disposed to remember in a friendly spirit what England
had done for Ireland, in the course of the last fifty years. If
anything appeared to justify distrust of the mysterious Object of which
he was in search, Dennis resolved to be vigilantly on the look-out for
a gun-barrel, whenever he passed a hedge on his return journey to the
town.

Arrived at the milestone, he discovered on the ground behind it one
Object only--a fragment of a broken tea-cup.

Naturally enough, Dennis hesitated. It seemed to be impossible that the
earnest and careful instructions which he had received could relate to
such a trifle as this. At the same time, he was acting under orders
which were as positive as tone, manner, and language could make them.
Passive obedience appeared to be the one safe course to take--at the
risk of a reception, irritating to any man's self-respect, when he
returned to his employer with a broken teacup in his hand.

The event entirely failed to justify his misgivings. There could be no
doubt that Sir Giles attached serious importance to the contemptible
discovery made at the milestone. After having examined and re-examined
the fragment, he announced his intention of sending the clerk on a
second errand--still without troubling himself to explain what his
incomprehensible instructions meant.

"If I am not mistaken," he began, "the Reading Rooms, in our town, open
as early as nine. Very well. Go to the Rooms this morning, on the
stroke of the clock." He stopped, and consulted the letter which lay
open on his bed. "Ask the librarian," he continued, "for the third
volume of Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.' Open the
book at pages seventy-eight and seventy-nine. If you find a piece of
paper between those two leaves, take possession of it when nobody is
looking at you, and bring it to me. That's all, Dennis. And bear in
mind that I shall not recover the use of my patience till I see you
again."

On ordinary occasions, the head clerk was not a man accustomed to
insist on what was due to his dignity. At the same time he was a
sensible hu