"Nowadays," Eszterhazy said, "the younger bargees do not pierce their ears any more, do they?"
At this, rather to his surprise, the captain and the mate burst into rough, loud laughter, and the Boy turned absolutely crimson, with a tinge toward purple.
'Why, what is this joke?" the guest inquired. "Can I not see for myself that his ears are not pierced?"
"Har har har!" gufflawed Captain Francos Spits.
"Hot hor hor!" chuckled Mate Konkos Spits.
Between them they secured the Boy's head—for some reason he had turned shy and declined cooperation—and twisted it about, giving Eszterhazy some fear that he was about to witness a nonjudicial garroting. But evidently the Boy had a suflBciently limber neck. It was certainly true that the Boy's left ear had not been pierced. It now proved to be equally true that his right ear had. This was red and swollen about the lobe, and a thread, of an off-white tint, hung through and from it.
"I was like drunk when I done it," the Boy muttered.
Both of the brothers Spits sporting a golden ring in their right ears, they did not receive this in good spirit; Captain Francos, in fact, aimed a cuff. "What do you mean? You mean you got like sense and you done itl Ain't it good for the eyesight, ain't it. Doctor, ain't it?"
"So it is often said," Eszterhazy answered, adding, "The custom is exceedingly ancient, and I for one am glad to see it kept up."
The Boy seemed more disposed to take this for good than the growls of his superiors. Eszterhazy seized the moment to ask, "And what about the ring?"
The Boy fumbled in his pocket. Would it be some wretched brass trinket?—or even one which, though it might be fully lawful, would still be of infinitely less interest than— Out came a screw of filthy paper which showed signs of much wrapping and unwrapping. And inside that was the ring. It did, indeed, shine somewhat with the luster of a very fine mandarin orange. Eszterhazy took out the small leather case in which he carried an excellent magnifying glass.
"See th' eagle?" the Boy inquired. "Don't that mean it's good? Cost me half-a-duke."
"It is certainly as good as gold—that is," he hastened to explain, "it is certainly of very good gold."
"But it didn't have no pissin' gold wire loop, like. I hadda go to a reg-lar jooler for that. Wasn't he pissed off, 'cause I didn't git the
whole pissin' works from himl 'Don't git your piss hot, lardy,' I say t' him."
The Boy's address was vigorous, though, in the matter of adjectives, somewhat limited.
"Did you buy it from that philosopher chap?" asked Eszterhazy. The Boy nodded and commenced to rewrap it. "What did he say?" The Boy thought for a moment as he engaged in this difficult task.
"Said, 'The free lynx of the south . . .' Is what he said . . ." The Boy finished his task, put the wad back in his pocket, and, taking up from the table a toothpick which already showed signs of wear, proceeded to attend to his teeth. Clearly, the matter of the philosopher's discourse was over, as far as the Boy was concerned.
Captain Francos Spits wrinkled up one side of his face in a half-scowl of concentration. "'The south'" he repeated. "There ain't no lynxes in the south, brother—"
"Nor I never said there was! In the north, now—" He turned to Doctor Eszterha2y. "Our old gaflFer, he killed a lynx up north, for it was catching all his turkey-birds, and—"
"Waiterl" Eszterhazy caught all eyes. "Cognac all around," he ordered. Every lynx in the Monarchy was at once forgotten. It took a second order of the same before he was allowed to depart.
Back at Number 33 Turkling Street, he asked his librarian, Herra Hugo Von Sltski, "Do we have—we do have a copy of Basil Valentine's Twelve Keys, do we not?"
"We do. And we don't." Having uttered this statement, almost delphic in its tone. Von Sltski proceeded to explain. "Our copy has gone to the binders. As I had indicated it must, on last quarter's list. It is now in the press. I daresay we might get it out of the press. But I would instead propose that you consult the copy in . . . the copy in . . ." He rolled his eyes and thought a moment. "Not the Imperial Library, they haven't got one. And the one in the University is defective." The eyes rolled down again. "There is a good copy in the collection at the Library of the Grand Lodge. I will give you a note to the Keeper of the Rare Volumes." He took out his card, neatly wrote a few words and a symbol upon it, and handed it over.
Eszterhazy thanked him and departed, thinking—with some irony, with some amusement—that there was at least one place in this great city, of which he had thought himself free, where he . . . even he . . . with his seven degrees and his sixteen quarterings, might not go with firm hopes of success without an introduction from one of his own employees.
The card sufficed to get him into the silent chambers high up in the blank-faced building marked only with the same symbol. No one prevented him from access to the catalogue, which consisted of shelf after shelf of huge bound volumes chained in their places. He found his entry, carefully copied down what he saw into one of the forms provided, took it to the desk and there handed it over, along with the puissant pasteboard. The man at the desk held the form in one hand and his spectacles with the other and read aloud, as though he were a rector conferring a degree.
" 'Volume V, of the Last Will and Testament of Basil Valentine, VIDELICET, a Practical Treatise together tvith the XII Keys and Appendix of the Great Stone of the Ancient Philosophers'"
There was the sound of a chair being scraped, a throat was cleared, and a voice asked, "Is that Master Mumau?" and a very tall, very thin, very pleasant-looking man came strolling forward from an adjacent office.
"No, it is not," the man at the desk said.
"Have I the opportunity of addressing the Honorable Keeper of the Rare Volumes?" asked Eszterhazy, handing over his own card— the assistant having already handed over the other.
"Ye-es," the Keeper said, as though struck by the remarkable coincidence of someone recognizing him whilst in his official capacity. "How do you do. I did think that you might be someone else. We do not often have many calls for such books. Ah-hah. Oh-ho. Yes. Yes. I know him very well. He was the Tiler at the Lodge of the Three Crowns. My lodge, you know." These last remarks referred, however, to Eszterhazy's librarian, not to Master Mumau, about whom Eszterhazy would have wished to inquire, would have wished to very much indeed, had he but been given opportunity. The Keeper was very kind, very thoughtful; he provided Eszterhazy with a desk by himself, brought him a better chair (he said) than the one already there, ordered a floor lamp, provided notepaper and sharpened pencils, regretted that ink could not be allowed, regretted that smoking could not be allowed, offered a snuffbox, had brought a printed list of the recent aquisitions, and, somehow, before Eszterhazy quite knew it, the Keeper, the desk assistant, and the floor assistant had all withdrawn. Leaving him, if not entirely alone, at least alone with Volume V of The Last Will
and Testament of Basil Valentine, etc., an absolutely vast volume, perforated here and there on its still-clear pages with neat little wormholes. It opened with the cheerful and reassuring notice that anything against the Holy Christian Faith which the work might ever have contained, if it contained any, had been purged and removed, according to the Rule laid down by the Council of Trent; the date of publication was 1647. It was not the first edition.
Nothing would have pleased Eszterhazy more than to have reread the entire volume through then and there. However, he was in search of a particular reference, and, as it happened, he found it in the Preamble. The Phoenix of the South hath snatched away the heart out of the breast of the huge beast of the East, for the beast of the East must be bereaved of his Dragons skin, and his wings must vanish, and then they must both enter the Salt Ocean, and return again with beauty . . .