Just then we entered the shop of Apostolo, who, his quill pen poised over a sheet of paper, seemed absorbed in deep meditation, though he at last grew aware of our presence, and appeared to joyfully recognize the unforgettable face of Abbot Lowrich. "Is it indeed the Lord, dear abbot," he said, hugging him, "who has sent you to extricate me from the most awkward predicament that I have ever found myself in? You cannot but know that I have been publishing, for some months now, the Adriatic Literary Gazette, which is, as all are agreed upon, the most erudite and witty of Europe's journals. Well! This rare scholarly journal, which is destined to have the world admire it and to get me back my fortune, is under threat of not appearing tomorrow for want of six small columns of serial, for which I have had recourse to my imagination tired out by study and business in vain. An evil spirit must have encompassed my ruin and sown disorder in my editor's office. The young muse who used to write my articles on moral education has gone into labour. The composer who was to let me have this morning a brand new type of cantata has written to say that it will take him at least a week to finish it, and the able financier who deals with questions of finance and political economy was sent to jail for non-payment of debt yesterday. For heaven's sake, my dear abbot, sit down at this table where I've sweated blood all night without my brain being able to yield a single line, and jot down five or six pages just as they come to you, if only a short story that won't have been used more than two or three times already." "Wait one moment," Abbot Lowrich riposted. "We'll have time enough to deal with your affairs after we've dealt with our own. We did not come to you, my friend from Paris, and myself from the fjords of Norway, to make good a missing cantata by a lazy composer, or to dash off a pot boiler, but to see some of these books that are at least worth the trouble and expense of a journey, a good first edition duly documented, a well-preserved cinquecento rarity with its date of publication, a valuable volume printed by the Aldine Press in which its English and French bookbinders have deigned to arrange margins." "As you please," replied Apostolo. "And I am all the more willing to consent to it as this inspection will not take us long. I have one work only worthy of being examined by connoisseurs like you. But what a work it is," he added, taking out of its triple wrapping an impressive looking folio. "What a work indeed," he went on, looking solemn, after he had quite detached it from its prison of wrapping paper. "A work to marvel at..." And he held out the book to Abbot Lowrich while giving him a look full of confidence and pride.