"-- There was a beautiful blue Persian about the house, but she fled at the very sound of water!--Could she have been after the goldfish ?" "We shall see!" returned the librarian.

"I know a little about cats of several sorts, and there is that in the room which will unmask this one, or I am mistaken in her." He rose, went to the door of the closet, brought from it the mutilated volume, and sat down again beside me.

I stared at the book in his hand: it was a whole book, entire and sound! "Where was the other half of it ?" I gasped.
"Sticking through into my library," he answered.
I held my peace.

A single question more would have been a plunge into a bottomless sea, and there might be no time! "Listen," he said: "I am going to read a stanza or two.

There is one present who, I imagine, will hardly enjoy the reading!" He opened the vellum cover, and turned a leaf or two.