of the Tom Faggus type, just
so adroit, and courteous, and daring. He was perhaps at his best in
cases where he had actually to hold up his victim; one may imagine the
scene,--the author resisting, the Bibliotaph determined and having the
masterful air of an expert who had handled just such cases before.

A humble satellite who disapproved of these proceedings read aloud to
the Bibliotaph that scorching little essay entitled _Involuntary
Bailees_, written by perhaps the wittiest living English essayist. An
involuntary bailee--as the essayist explains--is a person to whom
people (generally unknown to him) send things which he does not wish
to receive, but which _they_ are anxious to have returned. If a man
insists upon lending you a book, you become an involuntary bailee. You
don't wish to read the book, but you have it in your possession. It
has come to you by post, let us suppose, 'and to pack it up and send
it back again requires a piece of string, energy, brown paper, and
stamps enough to defray the postage.' And it is a question whether a
casual acquaintance 'has any right thus to make demands on a man's
energy, money, time, brown paper, string, and other capital and
commodities.' There are other ways of making a man an involuntary
bailee. You may ask him to pass judgment on your poetry, or to use his
influence to get your tragedy produced, or to do any one of a half
hundred things which he doesn't want to do and which you have no
business to ask him to do. The essayist makes no mention of the
particular form of sin which the Bibliotaph practiced, but he would
probably admit that malediction was the only proper treatment for the
idler who bothers respectable authors by asking them to write their
names in his copies of their books. For to what greater extent could
one trespass upon an author's patience, energy, brown paper, string,
and commodities generally? It was amusing to watch the Bibliotaph as
he listened to this arraignment of his favorite pursuit. The writer of
the essay admits that there may be extenuating circumstances. If the
autograph collector comes bearing gifts one may smile upon his suit.
If for example he accompanies his request for an autograph with
'several brace of grouse, or a salmon of noble proportions, or rare
old books bound by Derome, or a service of Worcester china with the
square mark,' he may hope for success. The essayist opines that such
gifts 'will not be returned by a celebrity who r