what he said to
Greeley,--it was a perfect bit of word-sketching, spontaneous,
realistic, homely, unpretentious, irresistibly comic because of the
quaintness of the dialogue as reported, and because of the mental
image which we formed of this large-headed, round-bellied, precocious
youth, who at the age of sixteen was able for three consecutive hours
to keep the conversational shuttlecock in the air with no less a
person than Horace Greeley. Amid the laughter and comment which
followed the narration one mirthful genius who chose for the day to
occupy the seat of the scorner, called out to the Bibliotaph:--

'How old did you say you were at that time, "Bub"?'

'Sixteen.'

'And did you wear whiskers?'

The query was insulting. But the Bibliotaph measured the flippancy of
the remark with his eye and instantly fitted an answer to the mental
needs of the questioner.

'Even if I had,' he said, 'it would have availed me nothing, for in
those days there was no wind.'

The Bibliotaph was most at home in the book-shop, on the street, or at
his hotel. He went to public libraries only in an emergency, for he
was impatient of that needful discipline which compelled him to ask
for each volume he wished to see. He had, however, two friends in
whose libraries one might occasionally meet him in the days when he
hunted books upon this wide continent. One was the gentleman to whom
certain letters on literature have been openly addressed, and who has
made a library by a process which involves wise selection and infinite
self-restraint. This priceless little collection contains no volume
which is imperfect, no volume which mars the fine sense of repose
begotten in one at the sight of lovely books becomingly clothed, and
no volume which is not worthy the name of literature. And there is
matter for reflection in the thought that it is not the library of a
rich man. Money cannot buy the wisdom which has made this collection
what it is, and without self-denial it is hardly possible to give the
touch of real elegance to a private library. When dollars are not
counted the assemblage of books becomes promiscuous. How may we better
describe this library than by the phrase Infinite riches in a little
book-case!

There was yet another friend, the Country Squire, who revels in
wealth, buys large-paper copies, reads little but deeply, and raises
chickens. His library (the room itself, I mean) is a gentleman's
library, with much cornice, much