Perhaps. Possibly. Who knows? It may be so!"
"What in the world" I began, but he cut me short with a frantic gesture.
"Non, non, my friend, not now," he implored. "Me, I must think. I must make this empty head of mine do the work for which it is so poorly adapted. Let us see, let us consider, let us ratiocinate!
"Parbleu, I have it!" He drew his hands downward from his forehead with a quick, impatient motion and turned to me. "Drive me to the nearest pharmacy, my friend. If we do not find what we wish there, we must search elsewhere, and elsewhere, until we discover it. Mordieu, Trowbridge, my friend, I thank you for mentioning that acid test! Many a wholesome truth is contained in words of idle jest, I do assure you."
Five miles out of Springville a gang of workmen were resurfacing the highway, and we were forced to detour over a back road. Half an hour's slow driving along this brought us to a tiny Italian settlement where a number of laborers originally engaged on the Lackawanna's right, of way had bought up the swampy, low-lying lands along the creek and converted them into model truck gardens. At the head of the single Street composing the hamlet was a neatly whitewashed plank building bearing the sign Farmacia Italiana, together with a crudely painted representation of the Italian royal coat of arms.
"Here, my friend," de Grandin commanded, plucking me by the sleeve. "Let us stop here a moment and inquire of the estimable gentleman who conducts this establishment that which we would know."
"But what?" I began, then stopped, noting the futility of my question. Jules de Grandin had already leaped from the car and entered the little drug store.
Without preamble he addressed a flood of fluent Italian to the druggist, receiving monosyllabic replies which gradually expanded both in verbosity and volume, accompanied by much waving of hands and lifting of shoulders and eyebrows. What they said I had no means of knowing, since I understood no word of Italian, but I heard the word acido repeated several times by each of them during the three minutes' heated conversation.
When de Grandin finally turned to leave the store, with a grateful bow to the proprietor, he wore an expression as near complete mystification and surprise as I had ever seen him display. His little eyes were rounded with mingled thought and amazement, and his narrow red lips were pursed beneath the line of his slim blond mustache as though he were about to emit a low, soundless whistle.
"Well?" I demanded as we regained the car. "Did you find out what you were after?"
"Eh?" he answered absently. "Did I find—Trowbridge, my friend, I know not what I found out, but this I know: those who lighted the witch-fires in olden days were not such fools as we believe them. Parbleu, at this moment they are grinning at us from their graves, or I am much mistaken. Tonight, my friend, be ready to accompany me back to that orphans' home where the devil nods approval to those who perform his business so skilfully."
That evening he was like one in a muse, eating sparingly and seemingly without realizing what food he took, answering my questions absent-mindedly or not at all, even forgetting to light his customary cigarette between dinner and dessert. "Nom d'un champignon," he muttered, staring abstractedly into
