of Serapeum where lies buried the kings
and princes with the helots and underlings of literature. Ay,
every book is a mortuary chamber containing the remains of some
poor literary wretch, or some mighty genius.... A book is a
friend, my brothers, and when it ceases to entertain or instruct
or inspire, it is dead. And would you sell a dead friend, would
you throw him away? If you can not keep him embalmed on your
shelf, is it not the wiser part, and the kinder, to cremate
him?"

And Khalid tells old Jerry, that if every one buying and reading
books, disposed of them in the end as he himself does, second-hand
book-shops would no longer exist. But old Jerry never despairs of
business. And the idea of turning his Serapeum into a kiln does not
appeal to him. Howbeit, Khalid has other ideas which the old man
admires, and which he would carry out if the police would not
interfere. "If I were the owner of this shop," thus the neophite to
the master, "I would advertise it with a bonfire of pamphlets. I would
take a few hundreds from that mound there and give them the match
right in front of that Church, or better still before the Stock
Exchange. And I would have two sandwich-men stand about the bonfire,
as high priests of the Temple, and chant the praises of second-hand
Jerry and his second-hand book-shop. This will be the sacrifice which
you will have offered to the god of Trade right in front of his
sanctuary that he might soften the induration in the breasts of these
worthy citizens, your rich neighbours. And if he does not, why, shut
up shop or burn it up, and let us go out peddling together."

We do not know, however, whether old Jerry ever adopted Khalid's idea.
He himself is an Oriental in this sense; and the business is good
enough to keep up, so long as Khalid comes. He is supremely content.
Indeed, Shakib asseverates in round Arabic, that the old man of the
cellar got a good portion of Khalid's balance, while balancing
Khalid's mind. Nay, firing it with free-thought literature. Are we
then to consider this cellar as Khalid's source of spiritual
illumination? And is this genial old heretic an American avatar of the
monk Bohaira? For Khalid is gradually becoming a man of ideas and
crotchets. He is beginning to see a purpose in all his literary and
spiritual rambles. His mental nebulosity is resolving itself into
something concrete, which shall weigh upon him for a while and propel
him in the direction