America, it has been wisely said, is the great land of fraud.  It is the Egypt of the modern world.  From America came the spiritualists, from America bogus goods, and cheap ideas and pirated editions, and from America I have every reason to believe came Dr. Groschen.  But if his ancestors came from Rhine or Jordan, that he received his education on the other side of the Atlantic I have no doubt.  Why he came to Oxbridge I cannot say.  He appeared quite suddenly, like a comet.  He brought introductions from various parts of the world—­from the British Embassy at Constantinople, from the British and German Schools of Archaeology at Athens, from certain French Egyptologists at Alexandria, and a holograph letter from Archbishop Sarpedon, Patriarch of Hermaphroditopolis, Curator of the MSS. in the Monastery of St. Basil, at Mount Olympus.  It was this last that endeared him, I believe, to the High Church party in Oxbridge.  Dr. Groschen was already the talk of the University, the lion of the hour, before I met him.  There was rumour of an honorary degree before I saw him in the flesh, at the high table of my college, a guest of the Provost.  If Dr. Groschen did not inspire me with any confidence, I cannot say that he excited any feeling of distrust.  He was a small, black, commonplace-looking little man, very neat in his attire, without the alchemical look of most archaeologists.  Had I known then, as I know now, that he presented his first credentials to Professor Girdelstone, I might have suspected him.  Of course, I took it for granted they were friends.  When the University was ringing with praises of the generosity of Dr. Groschen in transferring his splendid collections of Greek inscriptions to the FitzTaylor Museum, I rejoiced; the next grant would be devoted to science, in consideration of the recently enriched galleries of the art and archaeological section.  I only pitied the fatuity of the authorities for being grateful.  Dr. Groschen now wound himself into everybody’s good wishes, and the University degree was already conferred.  He was offered a fine set of rooms in a college famous for culture.  He became a well-known figure on the Q.P.  But he was not always with us; he went to Greece or the East sometimes, for the purpose, it was said, of adding to the Groschen collection, now the glory of the FitzTaylor.

It was after a rather prolonged period of absence that he wrote to Girdelstone privately, announcing a great discovery.  On his return he was bringing home, he said, some MSS. recently unearthed by himself in the monastic library of St. Basil, and bought for an enormous sum from Sarpedon, the Patriarch of Hermaphroditopolis.  He was willing to sell them to ‘some public institution’ for very little over the original price.  Girdelstone told several of us in confidence.  It was public news next day.  Scholars grew excited.  There were hints at the recovery of a lost MS., which was to ’add to our knowledge