A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder James De Mille

49
Next came Noel Oxenden, late of Trinity College, Cambridge, a college
friend of Featherstone's--a tall man, with a refined and intellectual
face and reserved manner. Finally, there was Otto Melick, a
litterateur from London, about thirty years of age, with a wiry and
muscular frame, and the restless manner of one who lives in a
perpetual fidget.
For some time nothing was said; they partook of the repast in silence;
but at length it became evident that they were thinking of the
mysterious manuscript. Featherstone was the first to speak.
"A deuced queer sort of thing this, too," said he, "this manuscript.
I can't quite make it out. Who ever dreamed of people living at the
South Pole--and in a warm climate, too? Then it seems deuced odd, too,
that we should pick up this copper cylinder with the manuscript. I
hardly know what to think about it."
Melick smiled. "Why, it isn't much to see through," said he.
"See through what?" said the doctor, hastily, pricking up his ears
at this, and peering keenly at Melick through his spectacles.
"Why, the manuscript, of course."
"Well," said the doctor, "what is it that you see? What do you make
out of it?"
"Why, anyone can see," said Melick, "that it's a transparent hoax,
that's all. You don't mean to say, I hope, that you really regard it
in any other light?"
"A transparent hoax!" repeated the doctor. "Will you please state why
you regard it in that light?"
"Certainly," said Melick. "Some fellow wanted to get up a sensation
novel and introduce it to the world with a great flourish of trumpets,
and so he has taken this way of going about it. You see, he has
counted on its being picked up, and perhaps published. After this he
would come forward and own the authorship."
"And what good would that do?" asked the doctor, mildly. "He couldn't