"
"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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