of
proofs, on which lay outspread the three forged letters to Rabelais. He
gazed at them blankly, and mechanically read: '_Maitre Rabelais, vous
qu'avez l'esprit fin et subtil!_' The characters seemed to go round and
round in a mixture of ink, dissolved into broad blots of sulphate of
iron, which to his imagination went on spreading, till they reached his
whole collection of originals, ten or twelve thousand, all unhappily
got from the same quarter. Since these three were forged, what of his
'Galileo'?--what of his 'House of Orleans'?--the letter of Catherine II.
which he had presented to the Grand Duke?--the letter of Rotrou, which
he had solemnly bestowed upon the Academie? What? What? A spasm of
energy brought him to his legs. Fage! He must at once see Fage!

His dealings with the bookbinder had begun some years before, when the
little man had come one day to the Library of the Foreign Office to
request the opinion of its learned and illustrious Keeper respecting a
letter from Marie de Medicis to Pope Urban VIII. in favour of Galileo.
It happened that Petit-Sequard had just announced as forthcoming, among
a series of short light volumes on history, entitled 'Holiday Studies,'
a 'Galileo' by Astier-Rehu of the Academie Francaise. When therefore the
librarian's trained judgment had assured him that the MS. was genuine,
and he was told that Fage possessed also the letter of the Pope in
reply, a letter of thanks from Galileo to the Queen, and others, he
conceived instantaneously the idea of writing, instead of the 'slight
trifle,' a great historical work. But his probity suggesting at the same
moment a doubt as to the source of these documents, he looked the dwarf
steadily in the face, and after examining, as he would have examined an
original, the long pallid visage and the reddened, blinking eye-lids,
said, with an inquisitorial snap of the jaw, 'Are these manuscripts your
own, M. Fage?'

'Oh no, sir,' said Fage. He was merely acting on behalf of a third
person, an old maiden lady of good birth, who was obliged to part
gradually with a very fine collection, which had belonged to the family
ever since Louis XVI. Nor had he been willing to act, till he had taken
the opinion of a scholar of the highest learning and character. Now,
relying upon so competent a judgment, he should go to rich collectors,
such as Baron Huchenard, for instance--but Astier-Rehu stopped him,
saying, 'Do not trouble yourself. Bring me all you hav