In the course of his junior year he chanced in his haphazard reading upon a German scientific review which contained an account of some excavations in the territory of Ancient Assyria. It told of the discovery of a large quantity of "brick" books, in a language as yet undeciphered. The matter interested him, and he set out to find what the library contained on the subject. He was surprised at the amount of material there was. The story of how Rawlinson and others had deciphered unknown languages fascinated him. He stayed on in Cambridge two months after graduation to finish up this subject. He found more information about the "brick" books which had first caught his attention. Several hundred of them had been brought to a museum in Berlin. Having nothing pressing to do in America, he went over to have a look at them. All the spoil from this expedition had been housed in one room. After studying the bricks for a couple of days, he thought he had found a clew. He could get more ready access to them if he was a student, so he went to the University and enrolled. He had no idea of staying long, nor of attending courses in the University, but his only plan for life in America was to write a book on philosophy, and that could wait. The first "clew" proved to be an illusion. But those rows and rows of ancient bricks, with their cryptic writing which hid the story of a lost civilization, had piqued his curiosity. Again he decided that his work on philosophy could wait. It was two years before he satisfactorily translated the first brick. Once having found the key, his progress was rapid. If he had been in touch with the Assyriologists of the University, he would probably have confided in them at once. But he knew none of them personally, and he went on with his work single-handed. It took him six months to translate the entire collection. They contained the official records of a certain King of kings, who had ruled over a long-forgotten people called the Haktites. It took him six months more to arrange a grammar and dictionary of the Haktite tongue. Then he remembered the University and took his two manuscripts to the Professor of Assyriology. He was decidedly provoked by the first scepticism which greeted his announcement, even more bored by the hullabaloo which the savants made over him, when investigation proved the truth of his claim. He stayed a year longer in Europe, to see an edition of his work through the press at Berlin and to translate the scattered Haktite bricks in other museums. This took him as far as Teheran and afield to the site of the excavations, where there were numerous inscriptions on the stonework which was too unwieldy to be taken to European museums. Then he came to New York to take up the position of Instructor in Assyriology in Columbia. He had stipulated that he should be granted a great deal of leisure. It was not a hard matter for the University to arrange, as