he will not smoke, but a cigar
will now leave him unmoved. Yes, and if he gets a chance to do an extra
piece of writing, between 12 and 2 A.M., he will clutch at the
opportunity, and all that he saves, he will calculate shilling by
shilling, and the book he purchases with the complete price--that is the
price to which he has brought down the seller after two days'
negotiations--anxious yet joyful days--will be all the dearer to him for
his self-denial. He has also anodynes for his conscience when he seems
to be wronging his afflicted family, for is he not gathering the best of
legacies for his sons, something which will make their houses rich for
ever, or if things come to the worst cannot his collection be sold and
all he has expended be restored with usury, which in passing I may say is
a vain dream? But at any rate, if other men spend money on dinners and
on sport, on carved furniture and gay clothing, may he not also have one
luxury in life? His conscience, however, does give painful twinges, and
he will leave the Pines Horace, which he has been handling delicately for
three weeks, in hopeless admiration of its marvellous typography, and be
outside the door before a happy thought strikes him, and he returns to
buy it, after thirty minutes' bargaining, with perfect confidence and a
sense of personal generosity. What gave him this relief and now suffuses
his very soul with charity? It was a date which for the moment he had
forgotten and which has occurred most fortunately. To-morrow will be the
birthday of a man whom he has known all his days and more intimately than
any other person, and although he has not so high an idea of the man as
the world is good enough to hold, and although he has often quarrelled
with him and called him shocking names--which tomcats would be ashamed
of--yet he has at the bottom a sneaking fondness for the fellow, and
sometimes hopes he is not quite so bad after all. One thing is certain,
the rascal loves a good book and likes to have it when he can, and
perhaps it will make him a better man to show that he has been remembered
and that one person at least believes in him, and so the bookman orders
that delightful treasure to be sent to his own address in order that next
day he may present it--as a birthday present--to himself.

Concerning tastes in pleasure there can be no final judgment, but for the
bookman it may be said, beyond any other sportsman, he has the most
constant satisfac