tted, but at length,
concluding that I was new to the rules and regulations of the place,
accepted the supposedly superior knowledge of my informer and went
over to the library with a due measure of assurance. The first
attendant whom I addressed referred me to the assistant librarian,
and he again to the librarian. After these formalities, conducted
with impressive gravity, my assurance wilted when I was ushered into
the august presence of the chief librarian.

As the mental picture of the ensuing scene has shaped itself through
more than forty years it shows a personage of imposing presence,
gigantic features, and forbidding countenance, standing on a dais
behind a desk, expounding the law governing the borrowing of books
from the library of Harvard College to an abashed youth standing
before him. I left without the book, but with a valuable addition
to my knowledge of library management. We both remembered this
interview, and exchanged impressions about it long years after.

"I thought you the most crusty and disobliging old man I had ever
seen."

"And I thought _you_ the most presumptuous youth that had ever
appeared in the library."

One of Mr. Sibley's professional doctrines was that at least one copy
of everything printed was worth preserving. I strove to refute him,
but long failed. Half in derision, I offered the library the stub
of my wash-book. Instead of throwing it into the wastebasket he
kept it, with the remark that the wash-book of a nineteenth century
student would at some future time be of interest to the antiquarian.
In due time I received a finely engraved acknowledgment of the gift.
But I forced him from his position at last. He had to admit that
copies of the theatre posters need not all be preserved. It would
suffice to keep a few specimens.

Professor Peirce was much more than a mathematician. Like many men
of the time, he was a warm lover and a cordial hater. It could not
always be guessed which side of a disputed question he would take;
but one might be fairly sure that he would be at one extreme or
the other. As a speaker and lecturer he was very pleasing, neither
impressive nor eloquent, and yet interesting from his earnestness
and vivacity. For this reason it is said that he was once chosen
to enforce the views of the university professors at a town meeting,
where some subject of interest to them was coming up for discussion.
Several of the professors attended the meeting