“Canon Petersham!” exclaimed the professor, going forward to greet him.

“By dear Professor Bulge!” reciprocated the canon.  “You here!  A most disquieting thing has happened to me.  I must have my safe at once.”  He divided his attention between the manager and the professor as he monopolized them both.  “A most disquieting and—­and outrageous circumstance.  My safe, please—­yes, yes, Rev. Henry Noakes Petersham.  I have just received by hand a box, a small box of no value but one that I thought, yes, I am convinced that it was the one, a box that was used to contain certain valuables of family interest which should at this moment be in my safe here.  No. 7436?  Very likely, very likely.  Yes, here is my key.  But not content with the disconcerting effect of that, professor, the box contained—­and I protest that it’s a most unseemly thing to quote any text from the Bible in this way to a clergyman of my position—­well, here it is.  ’Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth—­’ Why, I have a dozen sermons of my own in my desk now on that very verse.  I’m particularly partial to the very needful lesson that it teaches.  And to apply it to me!  It’s monstrous!”

“No. 7436, John,” ordered the manager, with weary resignation.

The attendant again led the way towards another armour-plated aisle.  Smartly turning a corner, he stumbled over something, bit a profane exclamation in two, and looked back.

“It’s that bloomin’ foreigner’s old bag again,” he explained across the place in aggrieved apology.  “He left it here after all.”

“Take it upstairs and throw it out when you’ve finished,” said the manager shortly.

“Here, wait a minute,” pondered John, in absent-minded familiarity.  “Wait a minute.  This is a funny go.  There’s a label on that wasn’t here before. ‘Why not look inside?’”

“‘Why not look inside?’” repeated someone.

“That’s what it says.”

There was another puzzled silence.  All were arrested by some intangible suggestion of a deeper mystery than they had yet touched.  One by one they began to cross the hall with the conscious air of men who were not curious but thought that they might as well see.

“Why, curse my crumpet,” suddenly exploded Mr. Berge, “if that ain’t the same writing as these texts!”

“By gad, but I believe you are right,” assented Mr. Carlyle.  “Well, why not look inside?”

The attendant, from his stooping posture, took the verdict of the ring of faces and in a trice tugged open the two buckles.  The central fastening was not locked, and yielded to a touch.  The flannel shirt, the weird collar and a few other garments in the nature of a “top-dressing” were flung out and John’s hand plunged deeper....