Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.

A MYSTERY TO BE SOLVED AT ANY PRICE

That study of his was a museum, and nothing else. Specimens ofeverything known in mineralogy lay there in their places in perfectorder, and correctly named, divided into inflammable, metallic, andlithoid minerals.

How well I knew all these bits of science! Many a time, instead ofenjoying the company of lads of my own age, I had preferred dustingthese graphites, anthracites, coals, lignites, and peats! And therewere bitumens, resins, organic salts, to be protected from the leastgrain of dust; and metals, from iron to gold, metals whose currentvalue altogether disappeared in the presence of the republicanequality of scientific specimens; and stones too, enough to rebuildentirely the house in Königstrasse, even with a handsome additionalroom, which would have suited me admirably.

But on entering this study now I thought of none of all thesewonders; my uncle alone filled my thoughts. He had thrown himselfinto a velvet easy-chair, and was grasping between his hands a bookover which he bent, pondering with intense admiration.

"Here's a remarkable book! What a wonderful book!" he was exclaiming.

These ejaculations brought to my mind the fact that my uncle wasliable to occasional fits of bibliomania; but no old book had anyvalue in his eyes unless it had the virtue of being nowhere else tobe found, or, at any rate, of being illegible.

"Well, now; don't you see it yet? Why I have got a pricelesstreasure, that I found his morning, in rummaging in old Hevelius'sshop, the Jew."

"Magnificent!" I replied, with a good imitation of enthusiasm.

What was the good of all this fuss about an old quarto, bound inrough calf, a yellow, faded volume, with a ragged seal depending fromit?

But for all that there was no lull yet in the admiring exclamationsof the Professor.

"See," he went on, both asking the questions and supplying theanswers. "Isn't it a beauty? Yes; splendid! Did you ever see such abinding? Doesn't the book open easily? Yes; it stops open anywhere.But does it shut equally well? Yes; for the binding and the leavesare flush, all in a straight line, and no gaps or openings anywhere.And look at its back, after seven hundred years. Why, Bozerian,Closs, or Purgold might have been proud of such a binding!"

While rapidly making these comments my uncle kept opening andshutting the old tome. I really could do no less than ask a questionabout its contents, although I did not feel the slightest interest.

"And what is the title of this marvellous work?" I asked with anaffected eagerness which he must have been very blind not to seethrough.

"This work," replied my uncle, firing up with renewed enthusiasm,"this work is the Heims Kringla of Snorre Turlleson, the most famousIcelandic author of the twelfth century! It is the chronicle of theNorwegian princes who ruled