"It is quite finished now," said Daniel Fagg, blotting the last page.

When he began to live with the dressmakers, Angela, desiring to find him some employment, had suggested that he should rewrite the whole of his book, and redraw the illustrations. It was not a large book, even though it was stuffed and padded with readings of inscriptions and tablets. An ordinary writer would have made a fair copy in a fortnight. But so careful an author as Daniel, so anxious to present his work perfect and unassailable, and so slow in the mere mechanical art of writing, wanted much more than a fortnight. His handwriting, like his Hebrew, had been acquired comparatively late in life; it was therefore rather ponderous, and he had never learned the art of writing half a word and leaving the other half to be guessed. Then there were the Hebrew words, which took a great deal of time to get right; and the equilateral triangles, which also caused a considerable amount of trouble. So that it was a good six weeks before Daniel was ready with a fair copy of his manuscript. He was almost as happy in making this transcript as he had been with the original document; perhaps more so, because he was now able to consider his great discovery as a whole, to regard it as an architect may regard his finished work, and to touch up, ornament, and improve his translations.

"It is quite complete," he repeated, laying the last page in its place and tapping the roll affectionately. "Here you will find the full account of the two tables of stone and a translation of their contents, with notes. What will they say to that, I wonder?"

"But how," asked Angela—"how did the tables of stone get to the British Museum?"

Mr. Fagg considered his reply for a while.

"There are two ways," he said, "and I don't know which is the right one. For either they were brought here when we, the descendants of Ephraim, as everybody knows, landed in England, or else they were brought here by Phoenician traders after the Captivity. However, there they are, as anybody may see with the help of my discovery. As for the scholars, how can they see anything? Wilful ignorance, miss, is their sin: pride and wilful ignorance. You're ignorant because you are a woman, and it is your nature too. But not to love darkness!"

"No, Mr. Fagg. I lament my ignorance."

"Then there's the story of David and Jonathan, and the history of Jezebel and her great wickedness, and the life and death of King Jehoshaphat, and a great deal more. Now read for the first time from the arrow-headed character—so called—by Daniel Fagg, self-taught scholar, once shoemaker in the colony of Victoria, discoverer of the Primitive Alphabet and the Universal Language."

"That is, indeed, a glorious thing to be able to say, Mr. Fagg."

"But now it is written, what next?"

"You mean how can you get it printed?"

"Of course—that's what I mean," he replied almost angrily. "There's the book and no one will look at it. Haven't I tried all the publishers? What else should I mean?"

The old disappointment, kept under and forgotten during the excitement of re-writing the book, was making itself felt again. How much further forward was he—the work had been finished long before. All he had done the last six weeks was to write it afresh.

"I've only been wasting my time here," he said querulously. "I ought to have been up and about. I might have gone to Oxford, where, I am told, there are young men who would, perhaps, give me a hearing. Or, there's Cambridge—where they have never heard of my discovery. You've made me waste six weeks and more."

Angela forbore to ask him how he would have lived during those six weeks. She replied softly: "Nay, Mr. Fagg; not wasted the time. You were overworked; you wanted rest. Besides, I think, we may find a plan to get this book published."

"What plan—how?"

"If you would trust the manuscript to my hands. Yes, I know well how precious it is, and what a dreadful thing it would be to lose it. But you have a copy, and you can keep that while I take the other."

"Where are you going to take it?"

"I don't know yet—to one of the publishers, I suppose."

He groaned.

"I have been to every one of them—not a publisher in London but has had the offer of my book. They won't have it, any of them. Oh, it's their loss—I know that. But what is it to me?"

"Will you let me try—will you trust me with the manuscript?"

He reluctantly and jealously allowed her to take away the precious document. When it was out of his hands he tried to amuse himself with the first copy, but found no pleasure in it at all; because he thought continually of the scorn which had been hurled upon him and his discovery. He saw the heads of departments, one after the other, receiving him politely and listening to what he had to say. He saw them turning impatient—interrupting him, declining to hear any more—referring him to certain books in which he would find a refutation of his theories; and finally refusing even to see him.

Never was discoverer treated with such contempt—even the attendants at the Museum took their cue from the chiefs, and received his advances with scorn. Should they waste their time—the illiterate—in listening unprofitably to one whom the learned Dr. Birch and the profound Mr. Newton had sent away in contempt? Better sit in the spacious halls, bearing the wand of office and allowing the eyelids to fall gently, and the mind to wander away among pleasant pastures, where there was drink with tobacco. Then there were the people who had subscribed. Some of them were gentlemen connected with Australia. They had tossed him the twelve-and-sixpence in the middle of his talk, as if to get rid of him. Some of them had subscribed in pity for his poverty—some persuaded by his importunity. There was not one among them all (he reflected with humiliation) who subscribed because he believed. Stay—there was this ignorant dressmaker. One convert out of all to whom he had explained his discovery; one, only one.

There have been many religious enthusiasts—prophets, preachers, holders of strange doctrines—who have converted women so that they believed them inspired of heaven. Yet these men made other converts; whereas he (Fagg) had but this one, and she was not in love with him, because he was old now and no longer comely. This was a grand outcome of that Australian enthusiasm!

That day Mr. Fagg was disagreeable, considered as a companion. He found fault with the dinner, which was excellent, as usual. He complained that the beer was thick and flat; whereas it sparkled like champagne, and was as clear as a bell. He was cross in the afternoon, and wanted to prevent the child who sat in the drawing-room from practising her music; and he went out for his walk in a dark and gloomy mood.

Angela let him have his querulous way unrebuked, because she knew the cause of it. He was suffering from that dreadful, hopeless anger which falls upon the unappreciated. He was like some poet, who brings out volume after volume, yet meets with no admirers, and remains obscure. He was like some novelist who has produced a masterpiece—which nobody will read—or like some actor (the foremost of his age) who depletes the house; or like a dramatist, from whose acted works the public fly; or like a man who invents something which is to revolutionize things. Only people prefer their old way!

Good heavens! Is it impossible to move this vast inert mass called the world? Why, there are men who can move it at their will—even by a touch of their little finger—and the unappreciated with all their efforts cannot make the slightest impression. This, from time to time, makes them go mad! and at such periods they are unpleasant persons to meet. They growl at their clubs, they quarrel with their blood relations—they snarl at their wives, they grumble at their servants!

Daniel was having such a fit.

It lasted two whole days, and on the second Rebekah took upon herself to lead him aside and reprove him for the sin of ingratitude—because it was very well known to all that the man would have gone to the workhouse but for Miss Kennedy's timely help.

She asked him sternly what he had done to merit that daily bread which was given him without a murmur? And what excuse he could make for his bad temper and his rudeness toward the woman who had done so much for him?

He had no excuse to make—because Rebekah would not have understood the true one—wherefore she bade him repent and reform, or he would hear more from her. This threat frightened him, though it could not remove his irritation and depression; but, on the third day, sunshine and good cheer and hope, new hope and enthusiasm, returned to him. For Miss Kennedy announced to him with many smiles that a publisher had accepted his manuscript; and that it had already been sent to the printers.

"He will publish it for you," she said, "at no cost to yourself. He will give you as many copies as you wish to have for presentation among your friends and among your subscribers. You will like to send copies to your subscribers, will you not?"

He rubbed his hands and laughed aloud.

"That," he said, "will prove that I did not eat up the subscriptions."

"Of course,"—Angela smiled, but did not contradict the proposition—"of course, Mr. Fagg. And if ever there was any doubt in your own mind about that money it is now removed, because the book will be in their hands; and all they wanted was the book."

"Yes, yes; and no one will be able to say—you know what. Will they?"

"No, no; you will have proofs sent you."

"Proofs," he murmured, "proofs in print!—will they send me proofs soon?"

"I believe you will have the whole book set up in a few weeks."

"Oh, the whole book! My book set up in print?"

"Yes. And if I were you, I would send an announcement of the work by the next mail to your Australian friends. Say that your discovery has at length assumed its final shape, and is now ripe for publication, after being laid before all the learned societies of London; and that it has been accepted by Messrs. ——, the well-known publishers, and will be issued almost as soon as this announcement reaches Melbourne. Here is a slip that I have prepared for you."

He took it with glittering, eyes and stammering voice. The news seemed too good to be true.

"Now, Mr. Fagg, that this has been settled, there is another thing which I should like to propose for your consideration. Did you ever hear of that great Roman who saved his country in a time of peril, and then went back to the plough?"

Daniel shook his head.

"Is there any Hebrew inscription about him?" he asked.

"Not that I know of. What I mean is this: When your volume is sent, Mr. Fagg—when you have sent it triumphantly to all the learned societies and all your subscribers, and all the papers and everywhere (including your Australian friends), because the publisher will let you have as many copies as you please—would it not be a graceful thing, and a thing for future historians to remember, that you left England at the moment of your greatest fame, and went back to Australia to take up—your old occupation?"

Daniel never had considered the thing in this light, and showed no enthusiasm at the proposal.

"When your friends in Victoria prophesied fortune and fame, Mr. Fagg, they spoke out of their hopes and their pride in you. Of course, I do not know much about these things. How should I? Yet I am quite certain that it takes a long time for a learned discovery to make its way. There are jealousies—you have experienced them—and unwillingness to admit new things. You have met with that, too; and reluctance to unlearn old things. Why, you have met with that as well."

"I have," he said, "I have."

"As for granting a pension to a scholar—or a title, or anything of that sort—it is really never done. So that you would have to make your own living if you remained here."

"I thought that when the book was published people would buy it."

Angela shook her head.

"Oh, no! That is not the kind of book which is bought—very few people know anything about inscriptions. Those who do will go to the British Museum and read it there—one copy will do for all."

Daniel looked perplexed.

"You do not go back empty-handed," she said. "You will have a fine story to tell of how the great scholars laughed at your discovery, and how you got about and told people, and they subscribed, and your book was published, and how you sent it to all of them—to show the mistake they had made—and how the English people have got the book now, to confound the scholars; and how your mission is accomplished, and you are at home again—to live and die among your own people. It will be a glorious return, Mr. Fagg. I envy you the landing at Melbourne—your book under your arm. You will go back to your old township—you will give a lecture in the schoolroom on your stay in England, and your reception. And then you will take your old place again and follow your old calling, exactly the same as if you had never left it, but for the honor and reverence which people will pay you!"

Daniel cooed like a dove.

"It may be," the siren went on, "that people will pay pilgrimages to see you in your old age. They will come to see the man who discovered the Primitive Alphabet and the Universal Language. They will say: 'This in Daniel Fagg—the great Daniel Fagg, whose unaided intellect overset and brought to confusion all the scholars, and showed their learning was but vain pretence; who proved the truth of the Scriptures by his reading of tablets and inscriptions; and who returned when he had finished his task, with the modesty of a great mind, to his simple calling.'"

"I will go," said Daniel, banging the table with his fist; "I will go as soon as the book is ready."