“I startled you, Sir,” muttered Wolf gently, drawing back a little. “It’s a dark, cold afternoon. I’m afraid I disturbed you. I am very sorry.”

For one second the old bookseller seemed to totter and sway, as if to follow his folio to the ground; but he mastered himself, and, leaning against the arm of his horsehair chair, spoke in a dry, collected voice. His words were as unexpected to his visitor as his agitation had been.

“Who are you, young man?” he said sternly. “Who were your parents?”

Not Dante himself, when in the Inferno he heard a similar question from that proud tomb, could have been more startled than Wolf was at this extraordinary enquiry.