The Gospel of Sheba Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’m pleased to have found the thing no matter what sort of trouble it causes. I’m mad for such treasures. Isn’t it beautiful, in a simple way?”
    â€œYes,” I said, thinking of calmly drawn letters in perfect horizontal lines, the hours spent making words appear by hand and will. “Yes, I agree with you. I’ll use the gloves, as a matter of course.”
    â€œObliged,” he said, raising his glass.
    Prior to dinner, I inquired as to the health problems suffered by each of The Gospel of Sheba’s borrowers chronologically—Mr. Pyatt first, then Mr. Huggins, and finally Mr. Grange. Each reported identical symptoms: freakish numbness, chest pains, the virulent inability to digest foodstuffs. But I am no doctor, so such details meant little to me. After dinner and talk of stocks, banks, acquisitions, and rites enacted within sacred circles chalked by holy madmen, I made my goodbyes. As I departed, I passed Mr. Scovil and paused to ask him the question which had been nagging me.
    â€œWhy this hobby, Mr. Scovil?” I inquired. “You’ve the means to explore any field you desire, and then add more—form Arctic expeditions, excavate tombs. Why dark magic?”
    He shrugged in the fashion very rich people do, when the slight flex of a muscle is pleasing to their own bodies.
    â€œIt’s in the family, as it were. Anyway, why art?” he replied, smiling. “Why hospitals? Why battle and conquest? Why patronage or charity? A man has to have something to work for, doesn’t he, besides money?”
    I thought so, too. I think so now. And yet …
    I want to know whether or not Lettie believed me when I told her we would never be well off all those years ago. Is it reasonable to wonder if perhaps she imagined me overly modest, or afraid of designing females, or simply a liar? She may have thought me the branch of a great tree which would flower in its due course, showering her with perfumed blossoms that glimmered in the sun.
    When in fact, as is becoming heartrendingly clear, I am only a sublibrarian.
    Note pasted in the commonplace book of Mr. A. Davenport Lomax, September 17th, 1902.
    Papa,
    I wonder if you could say when mother is coming home I only ask becaz Miss church wants me to pick new clothes for spring and when mother is heer it’s a lark. If you tell me, Ill paste it in my small calendur she sent from Florents.
    Love, Grace
    Excerpt from the private journal of Mr. A. Davenport Lomax, September 18th, 1902.
    My life has taken a stark turn towards madness.
    The Librarian approached me in the stacks today, exuding pipe smoke and benevolence, and I seized my opportunity.
    My wife is beautiful, and she is kind, and she is witty. She deserves better than cold meat picnics in Regent’s Park. So does Grace, for that matter, even if she is quite content when in the company of bread and ducks. Is it humiliating for a man of my breeding to ask for money? Exceedingly. But I cannot always be sending Lettie accounts of new research projects and old books, not when she is art to be held up and wondered over and praised by dukes and even kings—sometimes, I must write to her of victories. Even of salary increases .
    The Librarian opened his mouth to compliment me, and I mine to request a larger wage, one Lettie might consider livable and may even bring her home, when suddenly he stopped.
    â€œAre you all right, Mr. Lomax?” he asked. “You seem very pale, my dear boy, and your expression … I’ve never seen it before. Are you resting quite enough?”
    Standing there, dumb, I found he was correct. I was wearing a look painted by an unknown artist—and I found it singularly difficult to adjust my features into my usual warm if somewhat harried expression. My heart was racing for no earthly reason, and my fingertips had gone decidedly numb.
    The Librarian clucked sympathetically. “I fear my great enthusiasm for my most admirable