156 WASTE-LAND WANDERINGS. 



missing volume must he bronglit to light. Again I 

 crawled in, in spite of wasps, spiders, and millipeds, all 

 of which took mj presence grudgingly. I searched as 

 thoroughly as practicable, and was about to return — for 

 no book of that size could be found — when a glittering 

 object, like a coin, attracted my attention. It was a 

 pewter button on an old coat ; and I saw then that a 

 double row of them graced the front of the garment. I 

 brought the coat into daylight, and for the moment for- 

 got the missing volume of Du Pratz. It was such a 

 garment as I have seen in pictures and nowhere else. 

 Besides the two rows of buttons down the front, there 

 were three on each of the great flaps covering the side- 

 pockets, and three more on each of the wide-spreading 

 pocketed tails. Forty metal buttons on a coat ! I held 

 it aloft by the shoulders and gazed admiringly ; then 

 laying it down, I proceeded to explore its capacious 

 pockets. In one of them was the missing volume of 

 Du Pratz ! I pinched myself to see if it was I. Was 

 it not a dream ? 'No, there was the coveted book, and 

 with a sio;h of relief I sat down. 



I made a third attempt to get a knowledge of what 

 the closet contained, and particularly coveted an exam- 

 ination of an old trunk, but before I reached it, became 

 tangled in a maze of sj)inning-wheels which I had hith- 

 erto escaped. My arms somehow w^ere slipped in wheels 

 of different machines, and to dislodge them was no easy 

 matter. They resented by revolving to the full extent 

 of the elasticity of my arms. It w^as a tria,l of botli 

 nerve and patience ; but with one frantic effort I got 

 through, and reached the great black box, hide-bound, 



