The brand new volume that the boy carried home reverently under his arm, was a source of great bewilderment to him that evening in the little room. Again and again he scanned the virgin pages with wondering eyes. Great names were there, great events, things and men who had been his constant companions all his life long, but one and all were envisaged in an alien tongue. A strange metamorphosis had taken place. He was filled with despair. An acute sense of mystery oppressed him. He compared this new and shining tome with the old black volumes that were his priceless treasures. The mystery deepened. The letter was there in almost its original integrity; but an incommunicable something had passed away. On the following day during the luncheon hour, William Jordan, Junior, resigned the new volume to the care of Mr. M. Arnold Dodson. “It has not taken you long to go through it,” said that gentleman, with a light of admiration in his eye, for he himself was prosecuting researches into the subject which were fraught with pain. “Let me see your notes, my son. They will help me a good deal.” William Jordan, Junior, was fain to confess that he had not thought fit to commit to paper the result of his own researches. “You had better do so at once,” said Mr. Dodson, whose stern countenance showed plainly that it would brook no trifling. “I want to take ’em to-night to the British Museum. They will help me no end.” “B-b-but,” said the boy nervously, “it is n-n-not Homer.” For the moment the attitude of horror adopted by Mr. M. Arnold Dodson seemed designed to suggest that the heavens were about to fall. “Not Homer!” exclaimed Mr. Dodson. “Not Homer!” He appeared to gather up each particular unit of his four feet ten inches, to lend emphasis to a reply which somehow refused to come forth. “Not Homer!” he said after a pause whose length had ceased to make it dramatic. “Now look here, my son, I have only one word of advice to give you. You have only to let that come to the ears of Octavius, and you will be fired out of this old-established publishing house with one week’s salary and no character.”