There he remained, still puffing and blowing,
and looked as though he were hugging a huge green beetle.
Cockatoo, who, being lean and hard, kept his breath more easily,
stood respectfully by, waiting for his master to give orders, and
Lucy came in quietly by the gate, smiling at her father's
enthusiasm. At the same moment Mrs. Jasher, well wrapped up in a
coat of sables, emerged from the cottage.
"I heard you coming, Professor," she called out, hurrying down
the path.
"I should think the whole Fort heard the Professor coming," said
Hope, glancing at the dark mass. "The soldiers must think it is
an invasion."
But Braddock paid no heed to this jocularity, or even to Mrs.
Jasher, to whom he had been so lately engaged. All his soul was
in the mummy case, and as soon as he recovered his breath, he
loudly proclaimed his joy at this miraculous recovery of the
precious article.
"Mine! mine!" he roared, and his words ran violently through the
frosty air.
"Be calm, sir," advised Hope--"be calm."
"Calm! calm!" bellowed Braddock, struggling to a standing
position. "Oh, confound you, sir, how can I be calm when I find
what I have lost? You have a mean, groveling soul, Hope, not the
soaring spirit of a collector.
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