But I knew well enough that there was more to come.

I had hardly taken my seat when, looking up, I could see between my fingers the little man standing up and gesticulating beside one of the keepers.

At one moment he rapped the damning page with his forefinger; the next, he turned sidewise and flung out a hand toward me; and I divined, without hearing a word, all the bitterness of his invective.

The keeper appeared to take it seriously.
I felt myself blushing.

"There must be," thought I, "some law against ink-stains, some decree, some regulation, something drawn up for the protection of Early Texts.