Did Higgins remember
anything regarding it? It came four years ago.
Ah, yes, Higgins did; he remembered it very well indeed. He had come
in one morning with the earl's tea, and the old man was sitting up in
bed reading his volume with such interest that he was unaware of
Higgins's knock, and Higgins himself, being a little hard of hearing,
took for granted the command to enter. The earl hastily thrust the
book under the pillow, alongside the revolvers, and rated Higgins in a
most cruel way for entering the room before getting permission to do
so. He had never seen the earl so angry before, and he laid it all to
this book. It was after the book had come that the forge had been
erected and the anvil bought. Higgins never saw the book again, but
one morning, six months before the earl died, Higgins, in raking out
the cinders of the forge, found what he supposed was a portion of the
book's cover. He believed his master had burnt the volume.
Having dismissed Higgins, I said to the earl,--
'The first thing to be done is to enclose this bill to Denny and Co.,
booksellers, Strand. Tell them you have lost the volume, and ask them
to send another. There is likely someone in the shop who can decipher
the illegible writing.
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