In thirty
years, he had not missed one, till now. They buried the old warrior with
pomp and circumstance, not to speak of many tears, and his young
assistant in the sanctum came home from the graveside with a sense of
having lost a valued counselor and friend. Only the home to which the
assistant returned with this feeling was not the Third Hall Back of Mrs.
Paynter's, sometimes known as the Scriptorium, but a whole suite of
pleasant rooms, upstairs and down, in a nice little house on Duke of
Gloucester Street. For Nicolovius had made his contemplated move on the
first of May, and Queed had gone with him.
It was half-past six o'clock on a pretty summer's evening. Queed opened
the house-door with a latch-key and went upstairs to the comfortable
living-room, which faithfully reproduced the old professor's
sitting-room at Mrs. Paynter's. Nicolovius, in his black silk cap, was
sitting near the open window, reading and smoking a strong cigarette.
"Ah, here you are! I was just thinking that you were rather later than
usual this evening."
"Yes, I went to Colonel Cowles's funeral.
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