Collingwood read the letter first--it was evidently that which
Naylor had referred to as having been delivered the previous afternoon.
It asked for a good, clear copy of Hopkinson's _History of Barford_--and
then it went on, "If you should come across a copy of what is, I
believe, a very rare tract or pamphlet, _Customs of the Court Leet of
the Manor of Barford_, published, I think, about 1720, I should be glad
to pay you any price you like to ask for it--in reason." So much for the
letter--Collingwood turned from it to the folded paper. It was headed
"List of Barford Tracts and Pamphlets in my box marked B.P. in the
library at N Grange," and it was initialled at the foot J.M. Then
followed the titles of some twenty-five or thirty works--amongst them
was the very tract for which the American correspondent had inquired.
And now Collingwood had what he believed to be a clear vision of what
had puzzled him--his grandfather having just read the American buyer's
request had found the list of these pamphlets inside the _History of
Barford_, and in it the entry of the particular one he wanted, and at
once he had written to Mrs. Mallathorpe in the hope of persuading her to
sell what his American correspondent desired to buy. It was all quite
plain--and the old man's visit to Eldrick & Pascoe's had nothing to do
with the letter to Mrs.
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