I had got the full number of negatives, one for each
drawing, but I was not by any means sure that he had not taken an extra
set; so I went on hunting down the rack. There were no more, so I set to
work to turn out all the undeveloped plates. It was quite possible, you
see, that the other set, if it existed, had not yet been developed.
"Mirsky changed his tune. After a little more banging and shouting I could
hear him kneel down and try the key-hole. I had left the key there, so
that he could see nothing. But he began talking softly and rapidly through
the hole in a foreign language. I did not know it in the least, but I
believe it was Russian. What had led him to believe I understood Russian I
could not at the time imagine, though I have a notion now. I went on
ruining his stock of plates. I found several boxes, apparently of new
plates, but, as there was no means of telling whether they were really
unused or Avere merely undeveloped, but with the chemical impress of your
drawings on them, I dragged every one ruthlessly from its hiding-place and
laid it out in the full glare of the sunlight--destroying it thereby, of
course, whether it was unused or not.
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