So saying, Kibosh led us to the library; and here were some gentlemen assembled whose appearance clearly proclaimed them to be profound scholars, and who were to be of our spelling committee. While Kibosh made us known to each other, and we exchanged our formal greetings, the eye of each scholar sought the eye of every other scholar with that thirsty look an author wears, when the hope for compliments upon his writings flutters in his breast. But we were true professors, all of us, and not one had read a word that any of the others had ever written. Deceit should always be discouraged, nay, firmly punished, in the young; for by reason of their immaturity they have but little judgment when to practise it; but to the old it is frequently of the greatest service. Intending, therefore, to be as agreeable as possible, I approached Professor Lysander Totts with a feigned knowledge of his work. Shaking him cordially by the hand, I said, "Ah, yes; Pecan Nuts!" "What?" he replied, staring. "Why, Pecan Nuts!" I repeated. "Let me congratulate----" "My name is Totts," he interrupted. "To be sure!" I exclaimed. "Who has not read The Fuel of the Future?" "I haven't," said Totts. I corrected myself hastily. "What an absurd slip of the tongue!" I gayly ejaculated. "I meant Mustard Plasters in Pharaoh's Time." "I haven't read that, either," said Totts. I should now have been at some loss, but a plaintive voice behind me said, "Hup, hup, hup, hup." I turned, and saw a smiling little old man, with delicate silver locks that hung well-nigh to his collar. "Hup, hup," said he again, very amiably. I turned back to Totts in bewilderment. "He stutters," Totts explained. The voice behind me now said with a sudden sort of explosion, "I wrote it." I turned again, and, catching both his hands as a drowning man is said to catch a straw, I wrung them earnestly and long. "A great work!" I called out to him, as if he were deaf. "A very great work!" And not well knowing what I did, I further shouted to Miss Appleby, who was passing us: "He wrote it! Pecan Nuts!" "Hup, hup," said the little man. "Mustard Plasters." Little as I owe Miss Appleby, I must always hold her memory in gratitude for her coming forward at this extreme moment. "Of course it is Mustard Plasters!" she said, with delightful sweetness; "and you must write your name in my copy, dear Professor Egghorn." He extended an eager hand for the volume. "It is in my trunk," she continued promptly; "and your signature will make a unique gem of what is already a precious treasure. And you, dear Professor Totts, when I am unpacked, you will surely not refuse me the same honor? Professor Totts, you know," she added to me, "has proved that Cleopatra was a man." "Then who wrote Pecan Nuts?" I whispered to her hastily. "He hasn't come yet," she hastily whispered back.