"Well, it gives one rather a kink in the back after a time," Mark admitted. "But I shan't feel easy in my mind till I've looked through everything, and I'm getting a very useful idea of the estate accounts in the meantime. It is rather a long business, but I'm getting on with it, slow but sure. There are such a fearful lot."
"Are all these cupboards full of papers?" Gimblet asked, looking round him at the numerous little doors in the panelling.
"Stuffed with them, every blessed one of them," Mark replied rather gloomily. "And the worst of it is, I'm pretty certain they're nothing but these dusty old bills and letters. But there's nowhere else to look, and I know he kept nearly everything here."
Gimblet sauntered round the room, pulling open the drawers and peeping in at the piles of documents.
"What an accumulation!" he remarked. "None of these cupboards are locked, I see," he added.
"No, he never locked anything up," said Mark. "I've heard him boast he never used a key. Do you know, if one had time to read them, I believe some of these old letters might be rather amusing. It looked as if my grandfather and his fathers had kept every single one that ever was written to them. I've just come across one from Raeburn, the painter, and I saw another, a quarter of an hour ago, from Lord Clive."
"Really," said Gimblet eagerly, "which cupboard were they in? I should like to see them immensely some time."
"They were in this one," said Mark, pointing to the shelves opposite him.
Gimblet stood facing it, and looked hopefully round him in all directions for anything like a bull. There was nothing, however, to suggest such an animal, and he reflected that interesting though these old letters might be it would be going rather far to refer to them as curiosities. Suddenly an idea struck him.
"I suppose you haven't come across anything concerning a Papal Bull?" he inquired.
"No," said Mark, looking up in surprise. "It's not very likely I should, you know."
"No, I suppose not," said Gimblet. "Still, you old families did get hold of all sorts of odd things sometimes, and your uncle was a bit of a collector, wasn't he?"
"Uncle Douglas," said Mark, "not he! He didn't care a bit for that kind of thing. You can see in the drawing-room the sort of horrors he used to buy. He was thoroughly early Victorian in his tastes, and ought to have been born fifty years sooner than he was."