To Mr. Eames it would have mattered little, A priori, whether the relic was a femur or a tibia, a cow or man.  In this case, he liked to think it was the thigh-bone of a saint.  He possessed an unusually strong dose of that Latin PIETAS, that reverence which consists in leaving things as they are, particularly when they have been described for the benefit of posterity, with the most engaging candour, by a man of Perrelli’s calibre.  Now an insinuation like this could not be slurred over.  It was a downright challenge!  The matter must be thrashed out.  For four months he poured over books on surgery and anatomy.  Then, having acquired a knowledge of the subject—­adequate, though necessarily superficial—­he applied to the ecclesiastical authorities for permission to view the relic.  It was politely refused.  The saintly object, they declared, could only be exhibited to persons profession the Roman Catholic Faith, and armed with a special recommendation from the bishop.

“These,” he used to say, “are the troubles which lie in wait for a conscientious annotator.”

On another point, that of a derivation of the saint’s name, he was pained to discover in the pages of Father Capocchio an alternative suggestion, of which more anon.  It caused him many sleepless nights.  But on matters pertaining to the climate of Nepenthe, its inhabitants, products, minerals, water-supply, fisheries, trade, folk-lore, ethnology,—­on questions such as these he had gathered much fresh information.  Sheaves of stimulating footnotes had accumulated on his desk.

When would all this material be published?

Mr. Eames had not the faintest idea.  Meanwhile he calmly went on collecting and collecting, and collecting.  Something might turn up, one of these days.  Everybody with the slightest pretensions to scholarship was interested in his work; many friends had made him offers of pecuniary assistance towards the printing of a book which could not be expected to be a source of profit to its publisher; the wealthy and good-natured Mr. Keith, in particular, used to complain savagely and very sincerely at not being allowed to assist to the extent of a hundred or two.  There were days on which he seemed to yield to these arguments; days when he expanded and gave rein to his fancy, smiling in anticipation of that noble volume—­the golden Latinity of Monsignor Perrelli enriched with twenty-five years’ patient labour on the part of himself; days when he would go so far as to discuss prospective contracts, and bindings and photogravures, and margins, and paper.  Everything, of course, was to be of appropriate quality—­not pretentious, but distinguished.  Oh, yes!  A book of that kind—­it must have a cachet of its own. . . .

Then, suddenly, he would observe that he was joking; only joking.