I was paying little heed; the flying monk had enthralled me. An
unsuspected pioneer of aviation . . . here was a discovery!

"He flew?" I queried, my mind reverting to the much-vaunted triumphs of
modern science.

"Why not? The only reason why people don't fly like that nowadays is
because--well, sir, because they can't. They fly with machines, and
think it something quite new and wonderful. And yet it's as old as the
hills! There was Iscariot, for example--Icarus, I mean----"

"Pure legend, my good man."

"Everything becomes legend, if the gentleman will have the goodness to
wait. And here is the biography of----"

"How much for Joseph of Copertino?" Cost what it may, I said to myself,
that volume must be mine.

He took it up and began to turn over the pages lovingly, as though
handling some priceless Book of Hours.

"A fine engraving," he observed, _sotto voce._ "And this is the best of
many biographies of the flying monk. It is by Rossi, the
Minister-General of the Franciscan order to which our monk belonged; the
official biography, it might be called--dedicated, by permission, to His
Holiness Pope Clemens XIII, and based on the documents which led to the
saint's beatification. Altogether, a remarkable volume----"

And he paused awhile. Then continued: