It caught my eye because it was clearly the only new thing in the ancient place. Curious, I made a seat for myself on a stack of old papers and examined the thing more closely. It was quite an ordinary-looking green box, except for the rather formidable-seeming lock on its cover and what I imagined (falsely, of course) to be some faint lingering phosphorescence around the edges. I tried the lid idly and discovered that the lock had not been fastened. More out of boredom than anything else, I then reached in and brought out the enclosed sheaf of papers. Most of these seemed quite new, but there were also a few scraps of some thick, coarse vellum which gave some indication of having been burnt at the sides. I imagined that they had been treated with .some chemical preservative, for when I first opened the box, an odor issued forth which’ was noxious in the extreme. It dissipated very rapidly, however, and I thought no more on it.
The contents of the box included typed letters on which were inscribed in longhand various notes, charts, and a sketch, in addition to the yellowed bits of vellum. As the letters seemed to bear somewhat on my area of study, I carried the box and its contents to the main room and began to Xerox the material for later, more leisurely study.
Presently an elderly librarian chanced to pass. Espying the box, she became unaccountably agitated, and quite vigorously insisted that I make a halt to what 1 was doing. The poor woman was in such a state that I agreed to pause while she went to fetch