couldn't say anything more after that; but it seems rather
antiquated for a beverage, doesn't it? Why, here we are at my
rooms. Come in, won't you?"

"Thanks, I think I will. I haven't seen the
curiosity-shop for a while."

It was a room furnished richly, yet oddly, where every
jar and bookcase and table, and every rug and jar and ornament
seemed to be a thing apart, preserving each its own
individuality.

"Anything fresh lately?" said Villiers after a while.

"No; I think not; you saw those queer jugs, didn't you?
I thought so. I don't think I have come across anything for the
last few weeks."

Austin glanced around the room from cupboard to
cupboard, from shelf to shelf, in search of some new oddity.
His eyes fell at last on an odd chest, pleasantly and quaintly
carved, which stood in a dark corner of the room.

"Ah," he said, "I was forgetting, I have got something
to show you." Austin unlocked the chest, drew out a thick quarto
volume, laid it on the table, and resumed the cigar he had put
down.

"Did you know Arthur Meyrick the painter, Villiers?"