Ilse looked at the Professor, who with difficulty controlled the excitement that worked in his face. He grasped the light, but she kept it from him, and cried out, anxiously: "Not you." She hastened to the opening and thrust her hand into the hollow space. She laid hold of something tangible. A rattling was heard; she quickly withdrew her hand; but, terrified threw what she had laid hold of on the ground. It was a bone. All gazed in horror at the object on the ground. "This is a serious answer to your question," exclaimed the Proprietor. "We pay a dear price for our sport." He took the light and himself searched the opening; a heap of bones lay there. The others stood around in uncomfortable silence. At last the Proprietor threw a skull out into the cellar, and cried out cheerfully, as a man who is relieved from painful feeling: "They are the bones of a dog!" "It was a small dog," assented the stone-mason, striking the bone with his pick. The rotten bone broke in pieces. "A dog!" cried the Doctor, delighted, forgetting for a moment his blighted hope. "That is instructive. The foundation wall of this house must be very old." "I am rejoiced that you are contented with this discovery," replied the Proprietor, ironically. But the Doctor would not be disconcerted, and related how, in the early middle ages, there had been a superstitious custom of enclosing something living in the foundation-wall of solid buildings. The custom descended from the ancient heathen times. The cases were rare where such things were found in old buildings, and the skeleton now found was an indisputable confirmation of the custom. "If it confirms your views," said the Proprietor, "it confirms mine also. Hasten, men, to replace the stone." Then the stone-mason lighted up and felt again in the opening and declared that there was nothing more there. The workmen restored the stone to its place, the wine was replaced and the matter settled. The Doctor bore the jeering remarks, of which the Proprietor was not sparing, with great tranquillity, and said to him: "What we have discovered is certainly not much; but we know now with certainty that the manuscript is not to be found in this part of your house, but in some other. I take with me a careful record of all the hollow places in your house, and we do not give up out claims in regard to this discovery; but we consider you from now on as a man who has borrowed the manuscript for his own private use for an indefinite time, and I assure you that our wishes and desires will incessantly hover about this building." "Pray allow the persons who dwell there to participate in your good wishes," replied the Proprietor, smiling, "and do not forget that in your researches after the manuscript you have in reality found the dog. For the rest, I hope that this discovery will free my house from the ill-repute of containing treasures, and for the sake of this gain I will be quite content with the useless work."