A smoothly packed layer of excelsior greeted his eyes.  It was rather reassuring.  He felt that he might be unpacking any casual object.  Exposed at last was the wooden case that enveloped him!

Awestruck, he looked down at it for a long time.  He recognized the workmanship, having seen a dozen such in the museum in the park.  He knelt by it and ran a reverent hand over its painted surface.  In many colours were birds and beasts, and men in profile, and queer marks that he knew to be picture-writing; processions of slaves and oxen, reapers and water-bearers.  The tints were fresh under their overlaying lacquer.  There was even a smell of varnish.  He wondered if the contents—­if It—­were in the same remarkable state of preservation.  He rapped on the thin wood—­it was cedar, he thought, or perhaps sycamore.  The sound was musical, resonant; the same note that had vibrated how many thousands of years before.

Nap came up to smell, seeming to suspect that the box might contain food.  He stretched his forepaws to the top of the case and betrayed eagerness.

“Napoleon!” cried Bean sternly, putting the dog’s complete name upon him for the first time.  He was banished to his couch and made to know that leaving it would entail unpleasantness.

The thought of the Corsican came back with a new significance.  In that embodiment he had felt, perhaps dimly recalled, his Egyptian life.  Had he not been drawn irresistibly to Egypt?  “In the shadow of the pyramids,” he had read in a history, “the conqueror of Italy dreamed of the pomp and power of a crown and sceptre, and upon his return to France from the Egyptian expedition, with characteristic energy he set himself to work to bring the dream to pass—­” It was plain enough.  He knew now the inner meaning of that engraving he had bought, in which Napoleon stood in rapt meditation before the Sphinx.  They had all—­King, Emperor, Bean—­been dreamers that brought their dreams to pass.  He mused long, staring down at the case; a queerly shaped thing, fashioned to follow the lines of the human form.  From the neck the shoulders rounded gracefully.  They might have been cut to give the wearer the appearance of perfect physical development; at least they seemed to fit him neatly.

It occurred to Bean that the case should not lie prone.  It suggested death where death was not.  He pulled out more excelsior until he could raise the case.  It was surprisingly light and he leaned it upright against the wall.  He now tried to pretend that everything was over.  He gathered boards, excelsior and the crate and piled them in the kitchenette, which they approximately filled.

But inevitably he was brought back.  He stood with hands upon the cover of the upreared case, drew a long shivering breath and gently lifted it off.  His eyes were upon the swathed figure within, then slowly they crept up the yellowed linen and came to rest upon the bared face.