"May four hundred starving rats devour your books from first to last!" Lowrich interrupted furiously. "Who the devil has ever had four hundred francs asked of them for a bad book?"
"How dare you call this a bad book!" Apostolo spat back, almost as agitated as Lowrich. "It's a first edition of 1467, the first to appear in Treviso, and perhaps in Italy, a true masterpiece of typography and engraving, the illustrations in which can only be attributed to Raphael, an admirable work, the name of whose author has remained a mystery up until now, despite all erudite research, a one-off, or almost unique, that you yourself, abbot, perhaps did not know existed. And it pleases you to call that a bad book!"
Lowrich had calmed down during this vehement tirade. He had quietly sat down, placing his hat on the bookseller's table, and was wiping the sweat from his brow like a man exhausted by long and hard effort who has just found a good place to rest at his leisure.
"Have you finished, Apostolo?" he said in a calm tone of voice, in which, however, there could be detected a trace of I know not what malignant satisfaction. "The best thing I can hope for you is that you do no more to harm your kudos and your business interests from now on than you already have done. You have just said four very foolish things in as many words. If you had persisted, it would have taken me more than a day to recapitulate them one by one, and to do that would not leave me enough time to dictate that pot boiler, so, first of all: it isn't true that this book was printed in Treviso in 1467. It's an edition that was printed in Venice in 1499 from which the final page has been taken to deceive you as to the date of publication, and I didn't at first take note of that defect, which reduces the value of your copy by more than half, and therefore consider yourself fortunate in that I am able to remedy this fault, for blind chance allowed me to find the other day among some wrapping paper this precious end flyleaf, which I carefully kept in reserve for an opportunity to use it that I did not think would come so soon, so we'll presently see at what price I can let you have it."
So saying, Abbot Lowrich took from its cardboard cover the missing plagula, and carefully fitted it into the book. "This page fits my book perfectly," said Apostolo, "but I have to admit that it does change the nature of it somewhat. Where the devil did I get the idea that this was a Treviso first edition?"