They want an expert, and he must go at once and finish by the
twenty-seventh, or it's no use. Dear me, where is that letter?"

Keith goaded his brain to an agonizing activity. It seemed to him
that some such proposal had been made to him before. But where or when
he couldn't for the life of him remember.

"Pilkington says he told you something about it, last night. I've
heard from him this morning, too."

Pilkington--he remembered now. Dicky had bothered him about a library
last night; and he had wished Dicky at the devil. He beat his brains
till he struck from them an illuminating flash (Lord, how it hurt
too!).

"He didn't say it was the Harden Library."

"It is, though." Isaac's coarse forehead flushed with triumph. "He's
promised me the refusal of it when it comes into the market."

At any other time Keith would have been interested; but his head ached
too much now. Still he was not too far gone to recognize the magnitude
of the affair.

"You'll have to go down and look at it," continued Isaac persuasively,
"and here's the opportunity. You go on their business, and do mine at
the same time, and get well paid for it, too."

"I don't quite like going that way. If the thing's got to be sold why
do they want it catalogued?"