A long
narrow table occupied the centre of the room. It was always strewn with
magnifying-glasses, proofs, printers' slips, negatives--the litter of a
palaeographic student. There were three or four wooden chairs for the
benefit of scholarly friends, and an armchair upholstered in green rep
near the stove. In a corner stood the most striking, perhaps the only
striking, object in the room--a huge mummy from the Fayyum. The canopic
jars and outer coffins belonging to it were still unpacked in the freight
cases. It had been purchased from a bankrupt Armenian dealer in Cairo
along with a number of Graeco-Egyptian antiquities and papyri, of far
greater interest to the Professor than the mummy itself. As soon as the
interior was examined it was to be presented to the Museum; but more
entertaining and important studies delayed its removal. For many months,
with a curious grave smile, the face on the shell seemed to look down
with amused and permanent interest on Professor Lachsyrma struggling with
the orthography of some forgotten scribe, and arguing with a friend on
mutilated or corrupt passages in a Greek palimpsest.
Here, late one afternoon, Professor Lachsyrma was deciphering some yellow
leaves of papyrus. The dusk was falling, and he laid down the pen with
which he was delicately transcribing uncials on sheets of foolscap, in
order to light a lamp on the table. It was 6.30 by an irritating little
American clock recently presented him by one of his children, noisy
symbol and only indication that he held commune with a modern life he so
heartily despised.
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