"I don't know what you mean."

"How long have you had that laugh?"

"I have always been thus," said the child.

Ursus turned towards the chest, saying in a low voice,--

"I thought that work was out of date."

He took from the top of it, very softly, so as not to awaken the infant,
the book which he had placed there for a pillow.

"Let us see Conquest," he murmured.

It was a bundle of paper in folio, bound in soft parchment. He turned
the pages with his thumb, stopped at a certain one, opened the book wide
on the stove, and read,--

"'_De Denasatis_,' it is here."

And he continued,--

"_Bucca fissa usque ad aures, genezivis denudatis, nasoque murdridato,
masca eris, et ridebis semper_."

"There it is for certain."

Then he replaced the book on one of the shelves, growling.