st on an A Kempis, for this he had often
noticed as he worked of a morning.

Book-shelves had long ago failed to accommodate Rabbi's treasures, and
the floor had been bravely utilised. Islands of books, rugged and
perpendicular, rose on every side; long promontories reached out from
the shore, varied by bold headlands; and so broken and varied was that
floor that the Rabbi was pleased to call it the Aegean Sea, where he
had his Lesbos and his Samos. It is absolutely incredible, but it is
all the same a simple fact, that he knew every book and its location,
having a sense of the feel as well as the shape of his favourites.
This was not because he had the faintest approach to orderliness--for
he would take down twenty volumes and never restore them to the same
place by any chance. It was a sort of motherly instinct by which he
watched over them all, even loved prodigals that wandered over all the
study and then set off on adventurous journeys into distant rooms. The
restoration of an emigrant to his lawful home was celebrated by a feast
in which, by a confusion of circumstances, the book played the part of
the fatted calf, being read afresh from beginning to end. During his
earlier and more agile years the Rabbi used to reach the higher levels
of his study by wonderful gymnastic feats, but after two falls--one
with three Ante-Nicene fathers in close pursuit--he determined to call
in assistance. This he did after an impressive fashion. When he
attended the roup at Pitfoodles--a day of historical prices--and
purchased in open competition, at three times its value, a small stack
ladder, Kilbogie was convulsed, and Mains had to offer explanations.

"He 's cuttit aff seevin feet, and rins up it tae get his tapmaist
bukes, but that's no a'," and then Mains gave it to be understood that
the rest of the things the minister had done with that ladder were
beyond words. For in order that the rough wood might not scar the
sensitive backs of the fathers, the Rabbi had covered the upper end
with cloth, and for that purpose had utilised a pair of trousers. It
was not within his ability in any way to reduce or adapt his material,
so that those interesting garments remained in their original shape,
and, as often as the ladder stood reversed, presented a very impressive
and diverting spectacle. It was the inspiration of one of Carmichael's
most successful stories--how he had done his best to console a woman on
the death of her h