The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 262: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE MUMMY’S CASE 239 very thin and very much wrinkled; his features were sharp, and he had a habit of puckering up his lips as he looked steadfastly at any object. This was Mr. Fossilton, a man of deep learning in everything connected with archeology, and of profound ignorance in everything that related to all other matters. He had written elaborate works upon subjects which scarcely interested fifty people in the whole country, but which he fancied had an interest for the entire world. He could make a speech of three hours’ duration on an old pipkin dug out, or represented to have been digged out of Herculaneum, but he could scarcely say three words on any topic which people generally choose to converse upon. His house was full of curiosities, or what he believed to be curi- osities. He had spent nearly his whole fortune on things which he prized as being of inestimable value, but for the whole collection of which no plodding matter-of-fact person would have given him eighteenpence. Photography, the steam-engine, the railway, the electric telegraph, and all the brilliant discoveries or inventions of modern science, were with him as nothing in comparison with broken old china, bits of Roman cement, and other antique relics. He con- sidered it of far greater importance to the world to find a clue to the reading of Egyptian-hieroglyphics than to con- tribute in the slightest degree to the progress of modern intelligence. Such was Mr. Fossilton, the type of that class who prefer groping their way through the darkness of the tombs and sepulchres in which antiquity hes buried than to bask in the light of the knowledge of the nineteenth century. “Ts Mr. Bealby at home?” he at once inquired of the landlady. ‘““ Yes, sir,’ she responded. ‘‘ Pray walk up, sir; I know that he will see you at once. He has packed up the mummy all ready to send home to your house.”’ “Capital!” ejaculated Mr. Fossilton, with accents of de- light. “ To tell you the truth, my dear madam, — knowing from what you whispered to me yesterday how poor Bealby was pressed for money, —I was afraid that he might go and find another customer for that mummy of his, and I would not for the world have let it slip through my fingers. I know it is at least three thousand years old, — the state of the wrappers proves it.”’ “* Pray walk up, sir; I know Mr. Bealby will be very glad CoOnnicloookKs (CO)