The sale commenced, and the prices realised by some of the codices that comprised the first lots were ridiculously low. Whoever bought them made magnificent investments. For instance, a fourteenth-century English manuscript of Sower's "Confessio Amantes" on vellum, with eighty-five miniatures--a perfect gem, worth at least the fifteen hundred pounds which the Fountaine copy realised--went for eighteen pounds ten. A French manuscript of the Bible of the same period with a number of ornamental initials and miniatures fetched only sixteen pounds, although, as a collector, I knew it to be worth three hundred at least; while a thirteenth-century manuscript, "De Regimen Principium" of Egidius, written on vellum in double columns, with a beautifully illuminated border on the front page, and bearing the stencil mark of the well-known collector, Sir Thomas Phillips, fetched only twenty-one pounds ten; while a twelfth-century "Decretales Gregorii," an eleventh-century Latin Bible, and a "Biblia Versificata" of the twelfth century, once the property of the Jesuits' College at Heidelberg, fetched equally low prices. Presently the three manuscripts comprising lot eighty-two were held up for inspection. Each was about a foot square, and was intolerably dirty and stained by damp and time. "Now, gentlemen, what offers?" cried the auctioneer, and again he brought his hammer down on the table with a sharp knock. "I'll give ten pounds for them," instantly shouted a voice in the crowd, and all at once I caught sight of the face of the owner thereof, which, to my intense astonishment, proved to be no other than my friend Peter Zouche, that odd-shaped, deformed person who is familiarly known to the rich and learned everywhere as "The Hunchback of Westminster." Now, how had Peter Zouche, who was reputed to spend his life between Sotheby's, Quaritch's, Dobell's, and Maggs's, and that mysterious den in which he lived, under the shadow of the Houses of Parliament, got wind of these treasures. Instinctively I felt there was something more in these documents than even Don Jose had hinted, and so with a quick turn I caught the eye of the auctioneer and nodded briskly again. "Twenty pounds offered," he said, and he pointed his hammer straight at me, whereat all the crowd appeared to turn and stare suddenly and openly at me with fierce and malevolent looks. Then, almost in a flash as it were, the real excitement of the gathering broke out. Before I quite knew what had happened bids had poured in from a hundred eager voices, and the figures had miraculously climbed up, up, up with the rapidity of lightning, so that before I had interposed five times I believe they were actually all trembling on the brink of a thousand pounds! And this for three dirty, crisp rolls of parchment!