help thinking you are still delirious.”
“I am delirious? You are fibbing, my cock-sparrow! So I am strange? You find me curious, do you?”
“Yes, curious.”
“Shall I tell you what I was reading about, what I was looking for? See what a lot of papers I’ve made them bring me. Suspicious, eh?”
“Well, what is it?”
“You prick up your ears?”
“How do you mean—‘prick up my ears’?”
“I’ll explain that afterwards, but now, my boy, I declare to you … no, better ‘I confess’ … No, that’s not right either; ‘I make a deposition and you take it.’ I depose that I was reading, that I was looking and searching. …” he screwed up his eyes and paused. > “I was searching—and came here on purpose to do it—for