place where I put it back, pounced upon it as soon as I turned my
heel, copied it secretly, and published in haste, for the sake of
playing me a trick. But his edition swarms with errors, and I had
the satisfaction of afterwards criticising some of the gross blunders
he made.

But to come back to the point at which I left off: I began to suspect
that I was getting very sleepy indeed. I was looking at a chart of
which the interest may be divined from the fact that it contained
mention of a hutch sold to Jehan d'Estonville, priest, in 1312. But
although, even then, I could recognise the importance of the document,
I did not give it that attention it so strongly invited. My eyes
would keep turning, against my will, towards a certain corner of the
table where there was nothing whatever interesting to a learned mind.
There was only a big German book there, bound in pigskin, with brass
studs on the sides, and very thick cording upon the back. It was a
find copy of a compilation which has little to recommend it except
the wood engravings it contains, and which is known as the
"Cosmography of Munster." This volume, with its covers slightly open,
was placed upon edge with the back upwards.

I could not say for how long I had been staring causelessly at the
sixteenth-century folio, when my eyes were captivated by a sight so
extraordinary that even a person as devoid of imagination as I could
not but have been greatly astonished by it.

I perceived, all of a sudden, without having noticed her coming into
the room, a little creature seated on the back of the book, with one
knee bent and one leg hanging down--somewhat in the attitude of the
amazons of Hyde Park or the Bois de Boulogne on horseback. She was