"
"The scrap of paper, you mean," said I.
"No; it had much of the appearance of paper, and at first I supposed
it to be such, but when I came to draw upon it, I discovered it, at
once, to be a piece of very thin parchment. It was quite dirty, you
remember. Well, as I was in the very act of crumpling it up, my glance
fell upon the sketch at which you had been looking, and you may
imagine my astonishment when I perceived, in fact, the figure of a
death's-head just where, it seemed to me, I had made the drawing of
the beetle. For a moment I was too much amazed to think with accuracy.
I knew that my design was very different in detail from this
--although there was a certain similarity in general outline.
Presently I took a candle, and seating myself at the other end of
the room, proceeded to scrutinize the parchment more closely. Upon
turning it over, I saw my own sketch upon the reverse, just as I had
made it. My first idea, now, was mere surprise at the really
remarkable similarity of outline --at the singular coincidence
involved in the fact, that unknown to me, there should have been a
skull upon the other side of the parchment, immediately beneath my
figure of the scarabaeus and that this skull, not only in outline, but
in size, should so closely resemble my drawing.
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