sir."

"Aye, aye, but you'll know more of it later on," replied Bartle.
"Well--you know, too, no doubt, that the late John Mallathorpe was a
bit--only a bit--of a book-collector; collected books and pamphlets
relating to this district?"

"I've heard of it," answered the clerk.

"He had that collection in his private room at the mill," continued the
old bookseller, "and when the new folks took hold, I persuaded them to
sell it to me. There wasn't such a lot--maybe a hundred volumes
altogether--but I wanted what there was. And as they were of no interest
to them, they sold 'em. That's some months ago. I put all the books in a
corner--and I never really examined them until this very afternoon.
Then--by this afternoon's post--I got a letter from a Barford man who's
now out in America. He wanted to know if I could supply him with a nice
copy of Hopkinson's _History of Barford_. I knew there was one in that
Mallathorpe collection, so I got it out, and examined it. And in the
pocket inside, in which there's a map, I found--what d'ye think?"

"Couldn't say," replied Pratt. He was still thinking of his dinner, and
of an important engagement to follow it, and he had not the least idea
that old Antony Bartle was going to tell him anything very important.
"Letters? Bank-notes? Something of that sort?"

The old bookseller leaned nearer, across the corner of the desk, until
his queer, wrinkled face was almost close to Pratt's sharp, youthful
one. Again he lifted the claw-like finger: again he tapped the clerk's
arm.