Miss Primrose Part 16

"Latin and Greek, of course?" suggested Mr. Percival.

"Oh yes, at college--Latin and Greek."

"Dr. Weatherby," said my visitor, his eyes s.h.i.+ning, "I don't mind telling you: I am a--"

He wetted his lips and glanced nervously about him.

"We are quite alone," I said.

"Dr. Weatherby, I am an Egyptologist!"

"You are?" I answered.

"Yes," he replied! "Yes, sir, I am an Egyptologist."

"That," I remarked, "is a very abstruse department of knowledge."

"It is, sir," replied the little old gentleman, hitching his chair still nearer, so that leaning forward he could pluck my sleeve. "I am the only man who has ever successfully deciphered the inscriptions on the great stone of Iris-Iris!"

"You don't say so!" I exclaimed.

"I do, Dr. Weatherby. I am stating facts, sir. Others have attempted it, men eminent in the learned world, sir, but I alone--here in my bosom--"

He tapped the region of his heart, where a lump suggested a roll of ma.n.u.script. "I alone, Dr. Weatherby, have succeeded in translating those time-worn symbols. Dr. Weatherby"--he lowered his voice almost to a whisper--"it has been the patient toil of seven years!"

He sprang back suddenly in his chair, and drawing a red bandanna from his coat-tails proceeded to mop his brow.

"Mr. Percival," I said, cordially, looking at my watch, "won't you come to dinner?" His eyes sparkled.

"Well, now, that's good of you," he said. "That's very good of you. I _was_ intending to go on to New York to-night by the evening-train, but since you insist, I might wait over till tomorrow."

"Do so," I urged. "You shall spend the night with us. Let.i.tia will be delighted to see an old friend of her father, and my wife will be equally pleased, I know. Have you your grip with you?"

"It is just here--behind the lounge," said Mr. Percival, springing forward with the agility of a boy and drawing from beneath the flounce of the sofa-cover a small valise of a kind now seldom seen except in garrets or in the hands of such little, old-fas.h.i.+oned gentlemen as my guest. It had been glossy black in its day, but now was sadly bruised and a little mildewed with over-much lying in attic dust. In the very centre of the outer flap, which buckled down over a shallow pocket, intended, I suppose, for comb and brush, was a small round mirror, dollar-sized, which by some miracle had escaped the hand of time.

"By-the-way," I said, as we entered my buggy, "you haven't told me--"

He interrupted me, smiling delightedly.

"Why I am going to New York?"

"Yes," I said.

"Well, sir, I'll tell you. I'll tell you, doctor, and it's quite a story."

"Where is your home, Mr. Percival?"

"Sand Ridge," he said, "has _been_ my home, but I expect to reside hereafter in--"

He wetted his lips and pulled at his collar again--

"In New York, sir."

On our drive homeward he told his story. Early in manhood he had been a carpenter by day, by night a student of the ancient languages, which he acquired by dint of such zeal and sacrifice that Dr. Primrose, then in the zenith of his own career, discovering the talents of the poor young artisan, urged and aided him to obtain a pulpit in a country town. He proved, I imagine, an indifferent preacher, drifting from place to place, and from denomination to denomination, to become at last a teacher of Greek and Latin in the Sand Ridge Normal and Collegiate Inst.i.tute. Whatever moments he could spare from his academic duties, he had devoted eagerly to Egyptian monuments, and more particularly to that one of Iris-Iris which had baffled full half a century of learned men.

"But how did you do it?" I inquired. He wriggled delightedly in the carriage-seat.

"Doctor," he said, "how does a man perform some marvellous surgical feat, which no one had ever done, or dreamed of doing, before? Eh?"

"I see," I replied, nodding sagely. "Such things are beyond our ken."

"I did it," he chuckled. "I did it, doctor. And now, sir--"

He paused significantly.

"You are going to New York," I said.

"Exactly. To--"

"Publish," I suggested.

"The very word!" he cried. "Doctor, I am going to give my discovery to the world--to the world, sir!--not merely for the edification of savants, but for the enlightenment of my fellow-men."

"By George!" I said, "that's what I call philanthropy, Mr. Percival."

"Well, sir," he replied, modestly, "all I ask--all I ask in return, sir, is that I may be permitted to spend the remainder of my days, rent free and bread free, in some hall of learning, that I may edit my books and devote myself to further research undismayed by the--the--"

"Wolf at the door," I suggested.

"Exactly," he replied. "That's all I ask."

"It is little enough," I remarked.

"Doctor," he said, solemnly, "it is enough, sir, for any learned man."

When I reached home with my unexpected guest, Dove and Let.i.tia smilingly welcomed him; I say smilingly, for there was that about the little old gentleman which defied ill-humor. He seemed shy at first, as might be expected of a bachelor-Egyptologist, but the simple manners he encountered soon rea.s.sured him. I led him to our best front bedroom, where he stood, dazzled apparently by the whiteness and ruffles all about him, and could not be induced to set down his valise till he had spread a paper carefully upon the rug beneath it.

"Now, I guess I'll just wash up," he said, "if you'll permit me,"

looking doubtfully at the spotless towels and the china bowl decorated with roses, which he called a basin. I a.s.sured him that they were there to use.

It was not long before we heard him wandering in the upper halls, and hastening to his rescue I found him muttering apologies before a door through which apparently he had blundered, looking for the staircase.

Safe on the lower floor again, Let.i.tia put him at his ease with her kind questions about Egyptology, and the delighted scientist was in the midst of a glowing narrative of the great stone of Iris-Iris when dinner was announced. It was evident that Dove's table quite disconcerted him with its superfluity of gla.s.s and silver, and dropping his meat-fork on the floor, he strenuously resisted all Dove's orders to replace it from the pantry.

"No, no, dear madam," he exclaimed, pointing to the s.h.i.+ning row beside his plate, "do not disturb yourself, I pray. One of these extras here will do quite as well."

During the dinner Let.i.tia plied him with further questions till he wellnigh forgot his plate in his elation at finding such sympathetic auditors. Dove considerately delayed the courses while he talked on, bobbing forward and backward in his chair, his slight frame swayed by his agitation, his face glowing, and his beard bristling with its contortions.

"Never," he told me afterwards, as we pa.s.sed from the dining-room arm-in-arm--"never have I enjoyed more charming and intelligent conversation--never, sir!"