However, he listened and heard nothing; for the explosion, if
any ensued, was not sufficiently loud to shake a single leaf of the
ivy on the towers of Nightmare Abbey; and some months afterwards he
received a letter from his bookseller, informing him that only seven
copies had been sold, and concluding with a polite request for the
balance.
Scythrop did not despair. 'Seven copies,' he thought, 'have been sold.
Seven is a mystical number, and the omen is good. Let me find the
seven purchasers of my seven copies, and they shall be the seven
golden candle-sticks with which I will illuminate the world.'
Scythrop had a certain portion of mechanical genius, which his
romantic projects tended to develope. He constructed models of cells
and recesses, sliding panels and secret passages, that would have
baffled the skill of the Parisian police. He took the opportunity of
his father's absence to smuggle a dumb carpenter into the Abbey, and
between them they gave reality to one of these models in Scythrop's
tower. Scythrop foresaw that a great leader of human regeneration
would be involved in fearful dilemmas, and determined, for the benefit
of mankind in general, to adopt all possible precautions for the
preservation of himself.
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