ter
that my father was the greatest Greek scholar in America and my mother
the most beautiful woman south of Mason and Dixon's line? What that I
have ten million dollars and can ride, shoot, swim, golf, tennis, dance,
sing, compose, cook, and interpret the Irish sagas? I love you though
you have only twelve thousand a year.' And all over the hall we caught
such phrases as, 'Yes, he dropped 25,000 on Non Sequitur at Bennings.'
'Oh, just down for three weeks at Palm Beach, you know.' 'Two millions
in three weeks, they say, mostly out of Copper and Q.C.B.' 'Yes, just
back from South Dakota on the best of terms.' Then the room vanished, we
were by the sea, and Alice said wistfully, 'How limited our lives are,
dear.'"

I said: "My theory holds good. That was Robert Chambers, I am sure. Go
on."

"I have told you enough," said Pinckney, "to show what I mean by the
shadow over our happiness. It will pass away, of course. In the meantime
I try to explain to Alice that these are phantoms we vision, of no
relation to the practical life that we must lead on our side of the
boundary line; I tell her that these things we see are not, and never
have been and never will be. Am I right, do you think, sir?"

"Quite right," I told him.

XXXI

THE COMPLETE COLLECTOR--IV

"My latest fad," said Cooper, "is this little library of the greatest
names in literature. It is by no means complete, but the nucleus is
there."

When Cooper speaks of his fads he does himself injustice. The world
might think them fads, or worse. But I, who know the man, know that his
fondness for the insignificant or the extraordinary is something more
than eccentricity, something more than a collector's appetite run amuck.
In reality, Cooper's soul goes out to the worthless objects he
frequently brings together into odd little museums. He loves them
precisely because they are insignificant. His whole life has been a
silent protest against the arrogance of success, of high merit, of rare
value. His heart is always on the side of the _Untermensch_, a name
given by the Germans, a learned people, to what we call the under-dog.

"My collection," said Cooper, "is as yet confined almost entirely to
authors in the English language. Here is my Shakespeare, a first
edition, I believe, though undated. The year, I presume, was about 1875.
The title, you see, is comprehensive: 'The Nature of Evaporating
Inflammations in Arteries After Ligature, Accupressure, and T