[Frontispiece: The Liberry]



  "THE LIBERRY"

  BY

  IAN HAY


  WITH FRONTISPIECE BY

  KLEBER HALL



  BOSTON AND NEW YORK
  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
  The Riverside Press Cambridge
  1924




  COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY

  COPYRIGHT, 1923 AND 1924, BY IAN HAY BEITH

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED



  The Riverside Press
  CAMBRIDGE * MASSACHUSETTS
  PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.




"The Liberry"




"THE LIBERRY"



I

I first met Mr. Baxter at the fourpenny box outside Mr. Timpenny's
second-hand bookshop in High Street, and was attracted at once by the
loving care with which he handled its contents.  Dirty and
dog's-eared as most of them were, he never snatched one up or threw
it down, after the common fashion of patrons of inexpensive
literature, but would gently extract a more than usually disreputable
volume from its heap, blow the dust off, straighten the warped cover,
and smooth out the wrinkled pages before dipping into the
subject-matter.  In fact, the last operation struck me as interesting
him least of all.

Becoming aware of my presence, he moved aside with a courtly little
bow.  He was a dusty old gentleman, in a very shabby frock-coat.  He
looked as if he lived in the fourpenny box himself.

"Am I preventing you from selecting a volume, sir?" he inquired.

I hastened to reassure him.  I had no special designs on the
fourpenny box, or indeed on any.  I was merely idling.

"I am waiting for the druggist to make up a prescription," I said.

"Then you don't do your own dispensing, sir?"

"As a rule, yes.  I have run out of this particular drug, though.
But you know me?"

"Yes, sir; by sight.  We do not take long in Broxborough to get to
know every one by sight.  You succeeded to Dr.  Wiseman's practice, I
think?"

"Yes."

"A good old man, sir, and a lover of books, like myself."

"You're right about yourself," I said.  "You handle a book as I would
a delicate patient."

"A very apt comparison, sir.  To me, in a manner of speaking, a book
is a human thing.  A dilapidated book is a patient; I like to repair
its broken back and gum in its loose pages.  In fact, the late
Archdeacon used to rally me upon the subject, sir.  He insisted that
I cared more for a book, as a book, than for what was inside it."

I ventured, with immediate success, to draw him out upon the subject
of the late Archdeacon.

"Archdeacon Belford, sir.  He died many years ago, and few remember
him now.  A great scholar and gentleman.  I was associated with him
almost continuously in my younger days.  It was he who assisted me to
found my library."

"Your library?"

"Yes, sir."  The old gentleman's mild blue eyes suddenly glowed with
pride.  "Nothing very pretentious, of course; but I take my little
pleasure in it.  And it grows--it grows."  He picked a small tattered
volume out of the box--it looked like an ancient school prize--and
turned down a few dog's-ears with a distressed expression.

"A sweet little edition," he said, examining the text, "but small
print.  I have left my glasses at home.  Would you very kindly
indicate to me the nature of its contents, sir?"

I read a few lines aloud to him--poetry.

"I don't know it," I confessed.  "Poetry is not much in my line.  Let
me look at the title-page.  Ah--Robert Southey."

"I rather thought it was Southey," said Mr. Baxter immediately.

"I fancy you are more widely read than I am," I remarked.

"I make a point of reading aloud a passage out of one of my books
every day, sir.  I acquired the habit under the late Archdeacon.  We
read together constantly.  He had very definite views on the value of
reading.  'A man with books about him,' he used to say, 'is a man
surrounded by friends far more interesting and distinguished than any
he is likely to meet when he dines with the Bishop.  A man with a
library of his own, however small, is at once a capitalist who can
never go bankrupt and an aristocrat who moves in circles to which the
common herd cannot penetrate.  In other words, a man with a library
is a man respected!'  That was why I founded my own, sir.  The
Archdeacon himself contributed the first few volumes."

"Is it a large library?" I asked, glancing furtively at my
wrist-watch.

"No, sir; of very modest dimensions.  But it is sufficiently large to
be utilized by nearly all my friends."

"You lend them books, then?"

"Oh, no, sir.  I would not do that.  My books are everything to
me--and you know what book-borrowers are!  My friends are welcome to
tap my literary resources, but it must be through me as medium."

"I don't quite understand," I said, noting out of the corner of my
eye that Mr. Pettigrew, the druggist next door, had emerged from
behind the carved wooden screen which masks the mysteries of his
dispensing department from the layman's eye, and was now visible
through the shop window, busy with white paper and sealing-wax.

"When a seeker after knowledge calls upon me," explained the
indefatigable Mr. Baxter, "I select from my library the appropriate
volume and read, or recite, to him such passages as appear to me most
applicable to his case.  In this way I ensure the safety and
cleanliness of my literary property--

"So here you are!  I thought so.  Have you been buying another of
those dirty things?"

A small, alert, slightly shrewish girl of about fifteen had suddenly
appeared from nowhere, and was now transfixing my flinching companion
with the eye of the Ancient Mariner.

"Only fourpence, my dear," replied Mr. Baxter deferentially.

"That's right.  Throw money about!" said the young lady.  "Have you
got fourpence?" she added, with a slight softening of manner.

"Well, to be exact, I rather think all I have at the moment is
threepence."

The Ancient Mariner produced a penny.

"Here you are," she said, handing him the coin with a not altogether
successful attempt at an indulgent smile.  "You haven't bought
anything for a fortnight.  Go in and pay for it, and then come home
to dinner, do!"

"Good-morning, Mr. Baxter!  How's the library this morning?"

The druggist was standing in his doorway, with a facetious twinkle in
his eye.  Evidently Mr. Baxter's library was an accepted target for
local humour.

Mr. Baxter took no notice, but disappeared into the bookshop.  Mr.
Pettigrew handed me my bottle.

"One of our characters, that old fellow," he said, with that little
air of civic pride which marks the country-townsman booming local
stock.  "Quite a poor man, but possesses an extensive
library--_quite_ extensive.  His learning is at the service of his
fellow-citizens.  He likes to be called The Oracle.  Supposing you
want to know something about Shakespeare, or Julius Cæsar, or
Wireless Telegraphy, or Patagonia, you go to Baxter.  You press the
button and he does the rest!  Lives a bit in the clouds, of course;
and I wouldn't go so far as to say that his information is always
infallible.  In fact"--Mr. Pettigrew tapped his forehead
significantly--"his upper storey--"

"Who made up a wrong prescription, and poisoned a baby?" demanded an
acid voice immediately under the humourist's elbow.  He swung round.
The small girl, crimson with wrath, but with her emotions well under
control, stood gazing dispassionately before her, apparently talking
to herself.

"Whose wife gave a party," she continued--"and nobody came?  Whose
daughter wants to marry the curate--and he won't?  Who--"

"That'll do," announced Mr. Pettigrew, shortly, and retired in
disorder into his shop.  Simultaneously The Oracle emerged from the
bookshop with Robert Southey under his arm, and with a stately
inclination in my direction departed down the street, under the grim
and defiant escort of his infant guardian.




II

One morning about three months later, my butler, footman,
valet-de-chambre, chauffeur, and general supervisor, McAndrew, thrust
his head round the dining-room door as I sat at breakfast and
announced:

"There's a wee body in the hall."

I have known McAndrew for seven years now, and I understand his
vernacular.  We met in that great rendezvous of all time, the Western
Front, on a day when I took command of a Field Ambulance in which
McAndrew was functioning as a stretcher-bearer.  When our unit was
demobilized in Nineteen Nineteen, McAndrew came before me and
announced that he had relinquished all intention of resuming his
former profession of "jiner" in his native Dumbarton, and desired
henceforth to serve me in the capacity mentioned above for the joint
term of our natural lives.  I took him on, and he does very well.  He
has his own ideas about how to wait at table, and his methods with
unauthenticated callers are apt to be arbitrary; but he is clean and
honest, and--well, he wears a vertical gold stripe on his left sleeve
and three ribbons just above his watch-pocket.  That is enough for me.

As I say, his vernacular now contains no mysteries for me.  So when
he made the alarming announcement just mentioned I realized at once
that no case of infant mortality had occurred on my premises, but
that a person of small stature desired an interview.

"Man or woman?" I asked.

"A lassie."

"A patient?"

"I couldna say: she wouldna tell me," replied McAndrew, not without
bitterness.

"Bring her in," I said.  Forthwith the Ancient Mariner was ushered
into my presence.

"Grampa's in bed with one of his legs again," she announced.

I forbore to ask an obvious and fatuous question, and nodded.

"Dr. Wiseman used to attend him," continued my visitor; "but he
didn't charge him very much--next to nothink, almost," she added,
with a shade of anxiety.

"Is your grandfather insured, or on any club?" I asked.  "If so, the
panel doctor--"

"No, he isn't insured, or anything.  He's a gentleman.  He has a
liberry."

Toujours the Liberry!  "Where does he live?" I inquired.

"Twenty-One, The Common.  When can you come?"

"Eleven o'clock."

"All right.  Don't be earlier than that: I have the room to
straighten."


The Home of The Oracle proved to be one of a row--something between a
villa and a cottage.  The door was opened by my sharp-featured little
friend.

"Walk in," she said--"and wipe your boots."

Mr. Baxter was in bed in the front parlour.  As I had suspected, he
had both legs with him--but one of these was inflamed and swollen.

"I always bring him in here when he's poorly," explained the
granddaughter (whose name I discovered later to be Ada Weeks),
"because he likes to be with his old books."  She favoured her
patient with an affectionate glare.  "He's half silly about them."

I attended to the invalid's immediate wants, and then overhauled him
generally.  He was not what an insurance agent would have termed "a
good life."  After that, I was introduced to the library, which
occupied the wall opposite to the bed.  It consisted of a couple of
mahogany bookcases, of solid Victorian workmanship, with locked glass
doors lined with faded green silk.  Ada Weeks produced a key from
under her grandfather's pillow and unlocked one of the doors,
revealing the books.  They were all neatly covered in brown paper.
There were no titles on the backs, but each book bore a number, in
sprawling, irregular figures.

"There, sir!" announced my patient, with simple pride.  "There you
behold the accumulated wealth of a man who is just as wealthy as he
wishes to be!"

"Rats!" remarked a sharp voice from the recesses of the library; but
the old gentleman appeared not to hear.

"It dates from the lamented death of the late Archdeacon.  There are
a hundred and seventy-nine volumes in all.  The little Southey is the
last arrival.  Show it to us, Ada."

Miss Weeks extracted Volume One Hundred and Seventy-Nine from the
lowest shelf, and handed it to the old man.  He turned over the pages
lovingly.

"Here is the passage which made us acquainted, sir," he said.  "A
delightful thing."  He produced spectacles from somewhere in the bed,
adjusted them, and read:

  "_My days among the Dead are passed:
  Around me I behold
  (Where'er these casual eyes are cast)
  The mighty minds of old:
  My never-failing friends are they,
  With whom--With whom--_"

He faltered.

"'_With whom I converse day by day_,'" said Ada Weeks in a
matter-of-fact voice.  "Don't strain your eyes."

"You are right, my dear," admitted Mr. Baxter, laying down the book.
"The type is somewhat small.  But this little poem is strangely
suggestive of my own condition.  It is called 'The Scholar'--just
about an old man living in the past among his books.  I have read it
to myself many a time since last I saw you, sir.  Put it back, Ada;
and show the Doctor an older friend.  Something out of the late
Archdeacon's library--say Number Fourteen."

Miss Ada pulled down the volume indicated, blew viciously upon the
top edges, and handed it to me.  It proved to be part of an almost
obsolete Encyclopædia.

"A useful little compendium of knowledge," was Mr. Baxter's comment.
"Unfortunately, I have not the set complete--only eight volumes.
They go as far as _Pocahontas_.  There are four more, really."

"_Prairie Oyster to Zymotic_," confirmed the ever-ready Miss Weeks.

"Precisely.  You would be surprised at the number of my callers who
desire information on matters that come between _Prairie Oyster_ and
_Zymotic_!"  The old gentleman sighed.  "But where their requirements
are limited to the earlier letters of the alphabet, I can usually
find a passage which both interests and enlightens them."   He
glanced at the number on the back of the book.  "This is the first
volume of the set--_A--Byzantium_.  Many a hungry soul have I fed
from it."   He turned over the pages.
"_Addison--Algebra--Archæology--Adenoids_--  That reminds me, a
neighbour is coming in to consult me about adenoids this afternoon.
A mother--a woman in quite humble circumstances.  I must look up
adenoids."

"Isn't that rather trespassing on my department?" I asked.

"Oh, dear! no, sir.  All I shall do will be to find the passage
relating to adenoids, and read it aloud to Mrs. Caddick."

"Mrs. Caddick?  I am treating a child of hers for adenoids at
present."

"Quite so, sir.  And Mrs. Caddick naturally wishes to know what they
are.  I shall read aloud to her the scientific definition of the
ailment.  It is surprising what a comfort that will be to her.  Poor
soul, she's almost illiterate; and the printed word is a sacred
mystery to such!"

"You are an authority on human nature, Mr. Baxter, I perceive."

"You are kind to say so, sir.  But I was a mere disciple of the late
Archdeacon.  It's a strange thing, human nature," he continued
pensively.  "I have studied it all my life.  My recreation is to help
it--and it needs all the help it can get.  I am at home every
evening, and folk look in quite regularly to ask for my guidance on
some literary, historical, or scientific point of interest.
'Consulting The Oracle,' they are kind enough to call it.  Such
visits enable me to gratify at once my hobby and my vanity!"  He
smiled.

"You have one or two bulky-looking volumes up there," I said,
approaching the bookcase and inspecting the top shelf.  "Who is this
big fellow--Number Eighty-Seven?"

I half raised my hand; but in a flash Ada Weeks was before me.

"It's Shakespeare," she announced, snatching the volume down and
holding it to her flat little bosom.  "Presentation!"

"Ada is always a little jealous about letting the presentation
volumes out of her hands," explained Mr. Baxter, from the bed.  "That
book was conferred upon me as a small token of esteem by a certain
literary circle in London in which I was interested before I came
here, many years ago.  Bring it to me, my dear."

Ada Weeks, with a sidelong and defiant glance in my direction, handed
the great book to the old man.  He opened it at random, and began to
read aloud.

  "This fortress built by Nature for herself
  Against infection and the hand of war,
  This happy breed of men, this little world,
  This precious stone set in a silver sea,
  This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,--"

He broke off, and smiled.

"You see I do not need glasses," he said, "for such a passage as
that!  I almost know it by heart, although I never possessed the
Archdeacon's astonishing facility in that direction.  He was
accustomed to commit a passage to memory every day.  Put it back,
Ada, dear."

Miss Weeks restored the volume to the case, closed the door, turned
the key, and faced me with the air of a small but determined hen
which has safely shut her chickens into the coop in the very face of
an ill-disposed but inexperienced young fox.  I took up my hat.

"Good-bye, Mr. Baxter," I said.  "I shall come and see you to-morrow.
Don't let your disciples overtire you."

The old man flushed.  "I thank you for that flattering word, sir," he
said.

Halfway down the street I realized that I had forgotten my
stethoscope.  Accordingly, I retraced my steps.

I found the front door open.  I might have walked in without
ceremony; but, inspired by a very proper fear of Miss Ada Weeks, I
tapped respectfully and waited.  There was no response.  Presently I
became aware of voices proceeding from the front parlour, the door of
which stood wide open just inside the passage.  This is what I heard.

"_Adenitis_, and _Adenoid Growths_--that's the nearest I can find.
Which do you want?"

"I think _Adenoid Growths_, my dear.  Read it through once, as usual;
then again line by line."

"All right.  Pay attention, mind!" said Miss Weeks sharply, and began:

"_Adenoid Growths of the lym--lymphatic tissues of the upper throat
occur chiefly in children from four to fourteen_.  Yes, that's right:
Johnny Caddick is eight.  _The child breathes through the
mouth_--Where do they expect him to breathe through?  His
ear?--_suffers from Nasal Cat_--cat something; we'll call it
cater--_from Nasal Cater_.  I wonder how people can write such words,
let alone read them!"

"To me," said the gentle voice of the old man, "it seems wonderful
that they should be able to do either."

"Listen again," commanded Miss Weeks, oblivious of a resounding knock
from me.

"_--Nasal Cater, and slight deafness; and is stupid and sluggish_--
This book takes off Johnny Caddick to the life, and no mistake!  I
wonder what his mother will say--with a _cha-rac-ter-is-tic_--oh,
crumbs!--_facial expression.  Cure is effected by a simple operation
of removal_.  Does that mean his face?  A good job if it does!
That's all.  Now I'll learn you it.  _Adenoid Growths--_"

"_Adenoid Growths; Adenoid Growths; Adenoid Growths--_"

"_Of the lymphatic tissues--_"

"_Of the lymphatic tissues--_"

I recollected that I had a spare stethoscope at home, and tiptoed
down the steps.




III

I learned a good deal about the Baxter _ménage_ during the next few
weeks, from various sources.

First the Rector, whom I encountered one day paying a parochial call
at Twenty-One, The Common.  We walked home together.

"He's a strange old fellow," said my companion, "and most of his
characteristics are derived from imitations, conscious or
unconscious, of a stranger old fellow still."

"The late lamented?"

"Exactly.  Old Belford was a bachelor, and lived alone among his
books in his house in the Close for nearly forty years.  His only
companions were an aged cook-housekeeper and Adam Baxter.  He died
fifteen or twenty years ago, before I came here.  He was nearly
ninety, I fancy."

"What was Baxter's exact status in the household?"

"By his own account, he was the old man's confidential secretary,
amanuensis, and librarian.  My own belief is that he cleaned the
Archidiaconal boots.  Of course he may have been allowed to dust the
books in the library too.  Anyhow, during his period of service in
that household he contrived to amass an enormous quantity of more or
less useless book-learning.  He is regarded hereabouts as quite a
savant.  His erudition makes him respected by those who have none,
and his library of miscellaneous rubbish gives him the status of a
man of property."

"It's not all rubbish.  He has a Shakespeare and a Southey, at least.
He has Jowett's Thucydides too, he tells me."

"You're right: I retract that part.  But his library is rubbish, in
the sense that it's an unclassified rag-bag of odds and ends.  Still,
he's an enlightened old chap in his way.  When he settled down in
that little house after old Belford's death and began to set up as a
sort of provincial Socrates, his conversation and library were mainly
classical, as you might expect, considering their origin.  He would
pull down a Homer, or a Herodotus, or a Vergil, and spout to his
audience some favourite passage of his late employer."

"You mean to say he translated from the original Latin and Greek?"

"Ah!  That's what nobody knows.  The peculiar thing about Baxter is
that, though he will read or quote from any book in his library for
your delectation, he practically never permits any one to take the
book out of his hands.  No human eye, for instance, has ever fallen
upon the printed pages of Baxter's Homer.  If it did, I suspect it
would find that page printed in good plain English.  Pope's
translation, probably."

"You think he is a fraud, then?"

"Oh, bless you, no!  I think he is a genuine book-lover, and
values--in fact lives on--the respect which his literary eminence
earns for him in this extremely unliterary township.  But candidly I
think most of his classical works are common cribs.  I have known
less pardonable forms of hypocrisy.  But I was saying just now he was
enlightened.  Of late years he has supplemented his Latin and Greek
and his Poets and Historians by scientific and technical literature.
People go and consult him about all sorts of modern developments and
tendencies now."

"Adenoids, for instance?"

"Precisely.  Well, I turn off here.  I am going to pay a call upon a
gentleman who made a large fortune out of Civilian War Work of
National Importance.  _He_ has acquired a library, too--quite
recently and all at once--beautifully bound in morocco and tree calf.
But I doubt if he could quote a single line from a single volume
therein.  Baxter for me, every time!  Good-afternoon."

Secondly, from McAndrew.

"Yon auld felly, Baxter," he suddenly remarked to me one day while
driving me home from a professional round, and passing the door of
Number Twenty-One; "he's real respeckit in the toon.  In Scotland, of
course, he would be naebody, for every one's educatit there.  But
here there's men making as much as seeven pound a week at the Phoenix
Linoleum Works, on the south side, that has read naething since they
passed through school but the Sabbath newspapers.  They look on
Baxter as a kin' o' Cyclopedy.  _But_--I was in there the other nicht
for a bit crack, and I asked him what he thought of Rabbie Burns.
_He'd never heard tell of him_!  There's your Oracle!"

"Mr. Baxter is a self-made man of letters," I said.  "He got most of
his learning second-hand from the Archdeacon.  Perhaps the Archdeacon
was not a student of Burns, either."

The enormity of this suggestion quite paralyzed McAndrew for a while.
Presently he recovered sufficiently to resume: "Yon Archdeacon was a
doited sort of body.  He lived all alone in yon dreich-lookin' house
in the Cathedral Close nigh fufty year.  He had naething aboot him
but books, and naebody aboot him but an auld wife, Mistress Corby,
and Baxter.  She's deid now, but her dochter married on the
ironmonger in High Street.  It was her was telling me.  Mistress
Corby did the beds and the cooking, and Baxter did everything else.
He redd up the library, and dusted the books.  He carried the coals
and sorted the garden as weel.  And where do you think the Archdeacon
got him?"

"Baxter?"

"Aye, Baxter.  _Singin' in the street_!  There's few fowk in this
toon ken that, or mind it.  But Baxter just drufted into the place
one wet day, with the toes stickin' oot of his boots, and the
Archdeacon found him standin' in the rain and took him intil the
hoose and kept him.  Twenty-five shillin' a week he got, with two
suits of clothes a year and a bit present at Christmas.  He bided
there thirty years, and the Archdeacon never repented of his bargain.
Good servants is scarce."

McAndrew paused impressively, to allow this last truth to sink in,
and continued.

"I jalouse the way Baxter got an so weel with the Archdeacon was the
interest he took in the library.  He was never oot of it, unless he
was pitten oot.  It wasna so much that he would read the books as
worship them.  He would take them oot and hold them in his hands by
the hour, or sit back on a chair and glower at their backs on the
shelves.  So Mistress Corby's dochter that married on the ironmonger
tellt me."

"By the way, when did Mr. Baxter's granddaughter appear on the
scene?" I inquired.

"That was long after the old man died.  He left Baxter an annuity,
with two bookcases and a wheen books to start a library of his ain.
Mistress Corby's dochter says he left him fufty, and Baxter pinched
other twenty-five.  That was the nucleus, you'll understand.  The
rest he has been collecting for himself for many a year."

"And the granddaughter?" I inquired gently.

"Oh, aye; I was coming to her.  She came along aboot five years ago,
long after the old man had settled into yon wee hoose where he stays
now.  She just appeared.  Naebody could ever find oot where from,
although Mistress Corby's dochter asked Baxter to tea in her own
hoose twice and called on him herself three times.  Baxter is as
close as an oyster, and as for the lassie"--McAndrew shuddered
slightly--"she has an ill tongue tae provoke."

Thirdly, _chez_ Baxter.

As already indicated, it was the old gentleman's custom of an evening
to receive visitors in the front room and discourse to them on
literature, poetry, history, and science.  Light refreshments--very
light refreshments--were handed round by Miss Weeks; but these were a
mere appendage to the literary provender supplied.  I formed the
habit of joining this symposium upon one evening every week--at first
out of idle curiosity (and perhaps with the pardonable desire of
indulging in one of the few forms of advertisement open to a
struggling physician), but subsequently through sheer interest in the
academy itself and the amazingly sure touch with which the master
handled his disciples.

They were a motley crew.  There were socially ambitious young
shop-assistants, anxious to acquire a literary polish likely to
impress the opposite sex.  There were artisans who wished to advance
themselves in the technique of their profession.  There were
heavy-handed, heavy-shouldered, rather wistful men, with muscles made
lusty by hard physical labour, conscious of minds grown puny and
attenuated for lack of intellectual nourishment.  There were humble
folk with genuine literary leanings, who came to consult Mr. Baxter's
poems and essays, and sometimes shyly proffered compositions of their
own for perusal and comment.  There were men--uneducated men--dimly
conscious of the fact that they possessed immortal souls, who had
waded into the deep waters of theological speculation, and got out of
their depth.  For each and all Mr. Baxter had a word of welcome and
counsel.

"I am very happy to see you, Mr. Wright.  And your friend, Mr.--?
Mr. Dennis.  Thank you.  We are going to read and discuss a passage
from 'The Tempest' presently.  Shakespeare, you know.  Be seated, and
my granddaughter will offer you a little refreshment....  I have been
consulting various authorities on statical electricity for you, Mr.
Armitage.  I have marked a few passages in my Encyclopædia, Volume
Twenty in my library, which seem to me to treat the subject most
lucidly.  You might also derive some information from the life of Mr.
Faraday--Volume Eighteen.  My granddaughter will look up the passage
for you presently....  Ah, Mr. Jobson!  How are they down at the
factory to-day?  You are just in time.  We are about to read and
discuss a passage from 'The Tempest.'  Shakespeare, of course.  Be
seated, pray....  For me to read, Mr. Penton?  Thank you: that indeed
will be an intellectual treat.  I will peruse your manuscript at
leisure, and comment upon it at our next meeting....  The Agnostics
still bothering you, Mr. Clamworthy?  Well, I am no theologian; but
for sheer old-fashioned common sense I don't think you can beat
Paley's 'Evidences of Christianity.'  The late Archdeacon used to say
that he always came back to Paley in the end.  Ada, my dear, that
passage I marked in Volume Forty-Seven!  Now friends, 'The Tempest'!"

After that the Presentation Shakespeare would be opened, and Mr.
Baxter would declaim selected passages.  His voice was mellow, and
his manner ecclesiastical; plainly his whole deportment was moulded,
to the last gesture and inflexion, on one unvarying model.  A
discussion would follow--a quite naïve and rather pathetic
discussion, sometimes.  Ultimately Mr. Baxter would sum up, generally
with extracts from other Shakespearian passages, which he turned up
with great readiness and dexterity, rolling them from off his tongue
with obvious relish.  Occasionally he would ask Ada for some other
volume, and read from that.  There were great moments when he would
actually call for Homer or Horace and, with apologies for rusty
scholarship, offer to our respectful ears a quite coherent rendering
of some famous passage.

Finally, at a moment selected by herself, the vigilant Ada Weeks
would terminate the proceedings with the curt announcement that her
grandfather was tired.  The precious volumes were locked in the
library again, and we were bidden, without ceremony, to say
good-night to our host and not to bang the street door.  Both of
which commands we obeyed promptly and reverently, and departed
homeward.




IV

Possibly it may have occurred to the reader to wonder whether in a
community at once so erudite and progressive as Broxborough--it
possesses both a Cathedral Close and a Linoleum Factory, you will
remember--there can have been no official alternative to Twenty-One,
The Common--no Public Library, no Public Lecture Courses, no
Municipal Oracle, as it were.

In truth Broxborough once had all these things.  Before the War there
existed an institution known as Broxborough Pantheon.  Here was an
excellent library of reference; lectures and classes, too, were
constantly in operation throughout the winter months.  In its lighter
moments the Pantheon lent itself to whist drives.  But the entire
building had been destroyed by fire in Nineteen Fifteen, and had
never been rebuilt, for the good and sufficient reason that during
those days there were other things to do.  After the Armistice money
was scarce and rates were high.  Moreover, that shrinking
sensitive-plant, the British bricklayer, had been instructed by his
Union to limit his professional activities to a tale of bricks so
tenuous that his labours for the day were completed, without undue
strain, by the time that he knocked off for breakfast.  The months
passed; such constructive energy as the district could compass was
devoted to Government housing schemes, and still the Pantheon lay in
ruins.

But one day a man from Pittsburgh, who had been born in Broxborough
nearly forty years previously, and had relinquished his domicile and
civil status therein by becoming an American citizen at the age of
three, returned, rugged, prosperous, and beneficently sentimental, to
revisit the haunts of his youth, and refresh his somewhat imperfect
memories of his birthplace.

Naturally he found the place profoundly changed.  The Cathedral
organ-bellows were now inflated by a gas-engine, and the
nine-seventeen up-train did not start until nine-forty-two.
And--where the Broxborough Pantheon had once reared its stucco
pseudo-Doric façade upon the market-square, there was nothing but an
untidy hoarding masking a heap of charred débris, and labelled, 'Site
of proposed new premises of the Broxborough Pantheon.'  The label
appeared to have been there for some years.

John Crake of Pittsburgh made inquiries, and the truth was revealed.
The old Pantheon had ceased to exist for nearly five years, and the
new Pantheon, in the present condition of the rate-payers' pockets,
seemed unlikely ever to exist at all.  So John Crake, having pondered
the matter in his large and sentimental heart, put his hand into his
own capacious pocket, and lo! the new Pantheon arose.  The plasterers
had wreaked their will upon the donor's bank account, and were making
sullen way for the plumbers and electricians, about the time when I
first encountered Mr. Baxter outside the second-hand bookshop.

And now the building was ready for occupation, and the exact
procedure at the opening ceremony was becoming a matter of acute
recrimination at the Council meetings.  So that genial gossip the
Rector informed me, as we encountered one another one afternoon on
our professional rounds.

"Things are more or less arranged," he said, "so far as our city
fathers are capable of arranging anything.  The place is to be called
Crake Hall, which I think is right, and Crake himself is coming over
from America for the opening, which I call sporting of him.  Old
Broxey" (The Most Noble the Marquis of Broxborough, the Lord
Lieutenant of our County) "will perform the opening ceremony.  That
is to say, he will advance up the steps in the presence of the
multitude and knock three times upon the closed doors of the Hall.  A
solemn pause will follow, to work up the excitement.  Then the donor,
who will be standing inside, wearing a top-hat for the first time in
his life--"

"Rector, I have frequently warned you that your ribald tongue will
some day lose you your job."

"Never mind that.  It's a poor heart that never rejoices, and I am
too fat to be serious all the time, anyhow.  Well, after the
appointed interval of silence Crake will open a kind of peep-hole in
the oaken door, and say: 'Who goes there?' or something of that kind.
Broxey, if he is still awake, will reply: 'The Citizens of this
Ancient Borough,' or words to that effect.  Then the doors will be
thrown open--assuming that they will open; but you know what our
local contractors are--and Crake will be revealed in his top-hat, and
will say: 'Welcome, Stranger!' or, 'Walk right in, boys!' or, 'Watch
your step!' or something like that, and will hand the key of the
Institute to Broxey, who will probably lose it."

"I see.  And then to lunch at the Town Hall, I suppose?"

"Not so fast.  Remember this is a Cathedral city: the Dean and
Chapter must be given an opportunity to put their oar in.  The Dean
will speak his piece, and then I understand that the Choir, who are
to be concealed somewhere behind one of the doors, will create a
brief disturbance.  After that the Town will assert itself, as
against the County and the Close."

"What is their stunt going to be?"

"An Address of Welcome and Grateful Thanks to Crake."

"That seems reasonable.  But who is going to compose it?"

"I have already done so, by request.  It is not half bad," said the
Rector modestly.

"Who is going to read it?  The Mayor?"

"The Mayor is an imperfect creature, but he possesses one superlative
quality: he harbours no illusions about his own ability to grapple
with the letter H.  He declines to read the Address.  Most of the
Corporation are in the same boat--though they don't all admit it."

"Why don't you read it yourself?"

"Trades-Union rules forbid.  If I read it, it would be regarded as
the propaganda of the Established Church.  The forces of Town and
Chapel would combine to fall upon me and crush me.  No, we must have
a citizen--a citizen of credit and renown, locally known and
esteemed."   The Rector eyed me furtively.  "I suppose _you_, now--

"Not on your life!" I replied hastily.

"Why not?"

"Well, for one thing I am a comparative stranger: I haven't been here
two years yet.  Besides, in opening a literary and intellectual
emporium of this kind you want--I have it!  The very man!"

"Who?" asked the Rector eagerly.

I told him.

The Rector halted in the middle of the street and shook me by the
hand.

"Ideal!" he said.  "I'll fix it with the Council.  You go and ask
_him_."




V

I repaired to the Home of The Oracle that same evening.  It was
destined to be a memorable visit.

Something unusual in the atmosphere impressed itself on my senses the
moment Ada Weeks opened the door to me.  Miss Weeks's manner could
never at any time be described as genial: at its very best it was
suggestive of an indulgent sergeant-major.  But this evening Ada
resembled a small, lean cat, engaged in a rear-guard action with
dogs.  Her green eyes blazed: one felt that she would like to arch
her back and spit.

"Pettigrew and Mould is here," she said.  "Hang up your own hat: I
can't leave them."  And she vanished into the front room.

Messrs. Pettigrew and Mould were a sore trial to Mr. Baxter.  They
did not consult The Oracle regularly, but when they did they made
trouble.  Their efforts appeared mainly to be directed towards
embarrassing their host by asking frivolous questions, and then
humiliating him in the presence of his disciples by the manner in
which they received his answers.

The attitude of Mr. Pettigrew, the druggist, was understandable; for
he was a mean little man, and jealous.  He possessed diplomas and
certificates of his own: he was steeped in all the essences of the
Pharmacopoeia: yet none did him reverence.  The townspeople purchased
cough mixtures and patent pills from him with no more respect than if
they had been sausages or yards of tape.  Even when he assumed an air
of portentous solemnity and retired behind his carved oak screen with
a prescription, most of his customers took it for granted that he
filled up the bottle from a water-tap and added colouring matter and
a dash of something unpleasant to the taste.  Probably they were not
far wrong.  But wrong or right, it never occurred to any of them to
treat Mr. Pettigrew as an Oracle, or Savant, or Philosopher; and Mr.
Pettigrew undoubtedly felt very badly about it.

Mr. Mould was our local undertaker--which was unfortunate, for nature
had intended him for a low comedian.  Under a professionally
chastened exterior he concealed the sense of humour and powers of
repartee of a small boy of ten.  To him Mr. Baxter, with his studied
little mannerisms and his pedantic little courtesies, was fair game.

When I entered the parlour these two worthies were heavily engaged in
their favourite sport of philosopher-baiting.  The philosopher
himself, I noticed, was looking very old and very tired.  I had not
seen him for a week, and I was secretly shocked at his appearance.

"You're not looking well," I said, as I shook hands.  "You ought not
to be entertaining your friends to-night."

"Indeed," replied my host, with the ghost of a smile, "my friends
have been entertaining me.  Mr. Mould has been amusing us all.  Has
he not, Ada?"

"If I was his wife," replied Miss Weeks, with a glare which would
have permanently disheartened any comedian less sure of himself than
Mr. Mould, "I should die of laughing--at myself!"

This dark saying was accepted by the undertaker as a compliment.

"I certainly venture to claim," he observed complacently, "that we
pulled our respected friend's leg pretty neatly to-night."  Pettigrew
sniggered.

"What was the joke?" I asked, without enthusiasm.

"Well, me and Mr. Pettigrew here," began the undertaker, "knowing Mr.
Baxter's fondness for giving information and advice, brought him a
little poser last time we came here.  We asked him if he could find
anything in his library about an ancient Greek party called Cinchona.
He said he would look Mr. Cinchona up.  This evening he had his
little lecture all ready for us.  Highly enjoyable, it was.
Cinchona, it seems, was one of the less-known figures in Ancient
Greek Mythology--wasn't that it, Pettigrew?"

Pettigrew grinned, and clicked.  He was an unpleasant-looking
creature, with false teeth which did not fit.

"In fact," continued Mould, with immense relish, "poor old Cinchona
was such a little-known figure that most people--common uneducated
druggists, like Mr. Pettigrew--thought Cinchona was the name of the
bark they make quinine from.  Haw, haw, haw!"

The two humourists roared outright this time.  Mr. Baxter, with the
unruffled courtesy of perfect breeding, smiled again, though I could
see he was much put out.  Jobson, the heavy-shouldered artisan from
the factory, sat gazing at him in a puzzled and rather reproachful
manner.  One could see that he felt his master ought to have known
all about Cinchona.

"An interesting coincidence," commented the old man gently.  "The
drug cinchona is, of course, well known scientifically, but
classically, Cinchona the demi-god is hardly known at all.  In fact,
he is only mentioned once or twice in the whole of ancient
literature.  I have been dipping into my Homer"--he indicated the
familiar volume in his hand--"and I find--"

"May I look for myself?" asked Pettigrew suddenly; and before even
Ada could spring to the old man's side he had snatched the book and
opened it.  Baxter put out his hand anxiously.

"Let me find the passage for you, Mr. Pettigrew," he said.  "I do not
know whether you are familiar with ancient Greek--"

"No," said Mr. Pettigrew grimly, looking up from the book, "I am not.
But I _am_ familiar with modern German.  This book is printed in
German!"

"The marginal comments are in German, of course," said the old man
quickly.  "The thoroughness of German research is proverbial.  Give
me back the book, pray!"  I noticed he was breathing very shortly.

Ada Weeks settled the question by wrenching the volume out of
Pettigrew's hand and locking it into The Liberry.

"You can go!" she announced.  "We only entertain gentlemen here."

Pettigrew took up his hat: Mould rose and did likewise.  The rest of
the company fidgeted uncomfortably in their seats.  It was a
particularly unpleasant moment.

"Good-night, Mr. Baxter," said Pettigrew, moving towards the door,
which Miss Weeks was obligingly holding wide open for him.
"Sometimes I wonder," he sniggered, turning again, "whether you are
quite as ripe a scholar as you would have some of the less educated
people in this town believe."

"Ripe?  He's over-ripe--rotten!" announced Mould confidently.

Mr. Baxter rose suddenly from his armchair.

"Gentlemen," he said, "you insult me in my own house.  It is your
privilege to do so.  You are my guests--"

I thought it time to interfere.  I crossed the room, gently lowered
my old friend into his seat again, and turned to the company.  They
were all on their feet by this time.

"Now look here," I announced, in what I have always hoped is a breezy
voice, "you people really must keep your debates academic.  Here you
are, all flying straight up in the air over some twopenny-ha'penny
point of scholarship, and exciting one of my most valued patients"--I
patted Baxter solemnly on the shoulder--"to an attack of insomnia!
You mustn't do it, you know--especially just now!"

"What do you mean, just now?" asked Ada quickly.  She shot an
apprehensive glance at her grandfather's drawn features.

"I mean this.  You know the opening of Crake Hall takes place on
Saturday?"

Every one looked up, surprised at the diversion.

"Yes: what of it?" said Pettigrew.

"You know that an Address of Welcome and Grateful Thanks is to be
read to Mr. Crake by a representative citizen of the town?"

"Yes," said Pettigrew again; and he said it with an intensity which
gave him away badly.

"Well, Mr. Baxter here--our very dear and esteemed friend Mr.
Baxter"--I spoke the words deliberately, and felt the old shoulder
suddenly stiffen under my hand--"has been unanimously selected by the
Council"--I breathed a prayer that the Rector might not have failed
me--"to read that Address!  That is why I am thoroughly angry with
you all for tiring him out with your conundrums.  He is not a young
man, or a strong man; and I want to have him in first-class trim for
his appearance on Saturday.  Home to bed, all of you!"

"Outside!" commanded Miss Weeks; and shepherded the entire company
into the passage, closing the door behind her.

Baxter and I were left alone.  I took my stand on the worn
hearth-rug, with my back to the fire, lingering over the lighting of
my pipe with the uneasy self-consciousness of the Englishman who has
just participated in a scene.  My old friend's thin hands were
extended upon the arms of his chair; his head was sunk upon his
breast.  I decided to say something cheerful.

"Well," I remarked, "I think the Council's invitation came to you at
a very appropriate moment."

Baxter raised his head, and I noticed that he seemed to have grown
many years older.

"I fear you have done me an ill service, sir," he said.
"Unintentionally, of course!" he hastened to add.

"In what way?"

"I cannot accept the Council's invitation."

"Why not?  I'll have you fit and well by Saturday."

"It's not that, sir.  I cannot do it."

"Why not?"

"Because--because I happen to be an impostor!"

"Oh, come!  You must not take things too much to heart.  A man can be
a sound scholar without knowing very much about Greek or German."

"It's not that, sir."

"What, then?"

"I can neither read nor write."




VI

I mixed a glass of weak whiskey and water, and made him drink it.
Presently he began to talk--in a low voice, with pauses for breath;
but after a while with a flicker of his old graciousness and dignity.

"The late Archdeacon, sir, used to observe that a man should have no
secrets from his banker, his lawyer, or his doctor.  (He had a great
many from all three, but no matter!)  I have no banker, and no
lawyer; but I have a doctor--a very kind doctor--and I am going to
tell him something which it is only fair he should know.

"I was born before the days of Free Education.  I was earning my
living in the streets of London when Mr. Forster brought in the Bill
of Eighteen Seventy.  My circumstances were extremely humble.  I
passed the first years of my life on a canal barge.  (My uncle
steered the barge.  I think he was my uncle.)  It is difficult to
educate children so reared.  They have no permanent place of abode;
no particular school-district is responsible for such little
vagrants.  So I grew up illiterate.  My uncle died.  I earned my
living as best I could.  I was strong and active: I engaged in tasks
which demanded no knowledge of letters.  I learned to cipher a little
in my head and to read the ordinary numerals: but the alphabet
remained a mystery to me."

"Why did you not learn to read and write?"

"I did try.  At the age of twenty I determined to master my
ignorance.  I purchased a primer, and endeavoured to teach myself.
But that task was hopeless.  I entered a night-school--and they asked
me what I wished to study.
Languages--Mathematics--Science--Engineering?  How could I, a great
grown man, tell them that I wanted to learn to read and write?  I
hurried out of the building.

"Then I married.  I married a woman as unlettered as myself.  Whom
else could I ask?  We were happy together, in our humble way.  But we
had few associates, and such as we had possessed all our ignorance
and none of our aspirations."

"Had you children?"

"One daughter--Ada's mother.  You may depend upon it we sent _her_ to
school!  And she learnt quickly--far too quickly for me.  I had
cherished a hope that my child and I might commence our education
together.  But how could the muscle-bound intellect of an illiterate
of thirty keep pace with the nimble wits of a sharp little girl?"

The nimble wits of a sharp little girl!  Somehow I seemed to
recognize that portrait.

"My daughter had passed the goal almost before her father had
started.  Once more, discouraged and baffled, I relinquished my
ambitions: I was a foolish fellow to have entertained them at all.
But my child was good to me--very good.  Although she possessed
neither the art nor the patience to teach me my letters, she
discovered in me my one talent--quite a phenomenal aptitude for
memorization.  Compensation, probably.  If I heard an ordinary
newspaper article read over once or twice, I could repeat it word for
word without prompting.  And so to satisfy my hungry soul I would beg
my little daughter to read aloud to me her school tasks, or her
evening lessons--elementary history, geography, and the like.  I
never forgot them: they were the first real learning I ever
possessed.  I can repeat them still--and I think they kept me sane.

"My daughter grew up; married; had a daughter of her own; died; and I
was alone again.  Suddenly I perceived that I had passed middle age.
I was no longer able-bodied; and I began to realize that when the
body begins to fail, it is the brain that must carry on.  And I had
no brain--nothing but a few instincts and rules of life.  They were
wholesome instincts and healthy rules of life; but as a means of
livelihood they were valueless.  I began to slip down.  I supported
myself by odd and menial tasks: I cleaned knives and boots: I sold
newspapers which I could not read: I spent long hours as a night
watchman, occupying my mind by repeating to myself passages from my
little girl's schoolbooks.

"Then came a hard winter: work was scarce enough for skilled
labourers, let alone unskilled.  As for the illiterate, there was no
market for them at all.  I tramped from London to try my fortune
elsewhere; and came to Broxborough.  I was destitute: I sang in the
streets for bread--songs I had learnt by listening in public houses
or at popular entertainments in my younger days.  And there the late
Archdeacon found me.  I was a stranger, and he took me in."  He was
silent again.

"He was very good to you?" I said presently.

"He was an angel from Heaven, sir!"

"But didn't he teach you to read?"

The old man looked up at me piteously.

"Sir, I never confessed to him that I could not!  And he never found
me out!  Why should he?  I was his servant, engaged on purely
domestic duties.  Such clerical work as dealing with tradesmen
involved was attended to by the housekeeper.  One day my master asked
me if I had read the Prime Minister's speech, and I replied that I
never read the newspapers.  I intended the statement to be a
confession, leading up to a fuller confession; but instead, the good
old man took me to mean that I despised politics and journalism and
was interested only in philosophy and literature.  From that day he
admitted me to all the privileges of his literary companionship.  His
favourite hobby was reading aloud--preferably passages from the
Classics--and he had few to read to.  None, in fact.  I was appointed
his audience.  Every evening we sat together and he read aloud to me,
with every kind of illuminating comment.  My peculiar faculty for
memorization, intensified by the absence of any other medium of
self-cultivation, enabled me to commit to memory the greater part of
what he read and said.  At the end of ten years I could quote long
passages from most of the standard works of literature.  When the
dear old man died, I was a human fountain of quotations--poetical,
historical, philosophical.  Just that, and nothing more.  Once more I
had to make a niche for myself in the world.  My accumulated lore was
my sole asset.  So I took this little house, and set up my
useless--because mainly ornamental--little library, and endeavoured
to win the respect of my new neighbours by dispensing an erudition
which was in reality second-hand.  Second-hand, sir!"  He looked up
wistfully.  "Am I an impostor?"

"All learning is second-hand," I said.  "You are not an impostor."

He rose to his feet, and took my hand.

"You have lifted a load from my mind," he said.  "Confession is good
for the soul.  But you will understand now why I cannot deliver that
Address."

"Why not?" I repeated.  "I will get a copy of it for you, and you can
learn it by heart."

"You can do that?"

"Certainly."

The colour came back to his face.

"The time is short," he said eagerly--"very short; and my memory is
not what it was: but I will try.  Ada shall read it to me, and read
it to me, and read it to me, until I am word-perfect!  I _will_
succeed!  It will be wonderful!"

"It will score off Mould and Pettigrew too," I added spitefully.

But obviously Mr. Baxter was not thinking of Mould or Pettigrew.  He
was up again in his rightful place, in the clouds.

"It will be my Apotheosis!" he declared; and brought down his feeble
hand with a gentle thump upon the table beside him.

"That's right!" said Miss Weeks, entering.  "Break all the cups!"




VII

At the Municipal luncheon which followed the inauguration of Crake
Hall, one chair was vacant; the Mayor, in his opening remarks,
referring sympathetically to the fact.  Mr. Baxter, to whom had
fallen the honour of reading the Address of Welcome to their
distinguished guest that morning, had found the strain of the
proceedings rather too great for his advanced years, and had
reluctantly begged to be excused from participating further in the
ceremonies of the day.  In short, Mr. Baxter, his task completed, had
gone home to bed.  Later in the proceedings the Lord Lieutenant also
alluded to the matter.  His Lordship was a statesman of somewhat
limited ideas, and it is just possible that he was grateful to have
had a topic suggested to him.  So he spoke quite feelingly of the
empty chair--the chair which was to have been occupied by "our
eminent fellow-citizen, Mr.--er--Buxton."  It was a cheering and
reassuring sign, he continued, of our national and civic solidity of
character and sense of proportion that Broxborough, where to the
unseeing eye of the outside world nothing seemed to matter save
linoleum, should yet be able, amid its manifold industrial
activities, to produce a man--a man in quite humble circumstances--to
whom Linoleum was nothing and Letters everything.  Napoleon had
called us a nation of shopkeepers; but so long as a commercial
community like Broxborough could go on breeding homespun scholars
like Mr.--ah--Dexter, we as a nation could continue to give the lie
to Napoleon.  (Loud and prolonged applause.)

Meanwhile the recipient of these testimonials lay a-dying in his own
front parlour.  Ada Weeks had put him straight to bed there on his
return, utterly exhausted, from the Inauguration.  All his frail
physical powers had been concentrated for three days on making
himself word-perfect in the Address--which he had delivered, by the
way, flawlessly.  Now reaction had come.  An hour later, more nearly
frightened than I had ever seen her, Ada fetched me.

My patient had just asked me, faintly but fearlessly, one of the last
questions that mortal man can ask; and I had given him his answer.

"I am quite ready," he replied calmly.  "I am only seventy-four; but
it is well that a man should go at the zenith of his career."

"Are there any arrangements you would like to make?" I asked.
"Anything you would like to say?"

"Yes.  Is Ada there?"

"Of course I am there!"  The small, stricken figure crouching on the
other side of the bed put out a skinny paw and took the old man's
hand.  She held it steadfastly for the rest of the time he lived.

"Would you like to see the Rector?" I asked.

"No, no.  I am at peace with God.  It is of my little granddaughter
that I would speak."   His voice was stronger now.  "My annuity dies
with me.  I have some small savings, which she will receive.  But
they will not keep her.  I shall be grateful if you will exert your
influence, sir, in enabling her to go into service."

"There is a vacancy in my house, if Ada will come," I said.

"Thank you.  Will you go to the Doctor, Ada?"

Ada, with tears running freely at last, nodded in answer; and the
dying man proceeded to the business which was ever uppermost in his
thoughts.

"Then, sir, my Library."

"Yes.  What are you going to do with it?  Leave it to the town?"

"No, no, no, no!" He was strangely emphatic.

"What, then?" I asked.  I had an uneasy feeling that the Library was
going to be bequeathed to me, and I did not want it in the least.
But my fears were relieved at once.

"I intend to leave it to Ada--temporarily."

"Temporarily?"

"Yes.  But as she will be an inmate of your household, she will
probably desire to take you into her confidence, and possibly avail
herself of your assistance."  His voice failed again; his grip on
life was relaxing rapidly.  Then he recovered himself, and almost sat
up.

"Will you promise me, sir, to assist Ada to carry out my wishes with
regard to the disposal--"

"I promise," I said.  "Don't exhaust yourself."

The old man sank back, with a long and gentle sigh.

"Then I die contented, and reassured.  Re--"  His voice weakened
again.  Then he rallied, for a final effort:

"I have lived respected, I think!"

That was all.

I looked across to Ada, and nodded.  Characteristically, she rose
from her knees, crossed to the window, and drew down the blind.




VIII

Next morning, Ada Weeks and I sat facing one another in my study,
across a newly opened packing-case.  It contained Mr. Baxter's
Library.

"But why must we?" I asked.

"We needn't worry why.  He said every blessed book was to be
destroyed, and that's all there is about it.  Mr. McAndrew is burning
rubbish outside: I've told him we've got some more for him.  Let's
get it over, and go back to Grampa--sir," concluded Ada suddenly,
remembering somewhat tardily that she was addressing her employer.

We unpacked the books.  First came some musty theological tomes.

"He knew a lot out of them," remarked Ada.  "Used to fire it off at
the Rector, and people who didn't believe in religion, or couldn't.
He picked it all up from his old Archdeacon, though, long before I
came to him."

"When did you come, by the way?"

"Nearly six years ago now.  I was living with an aunt.  She went and
died when I was nine, and Grampa sent for me here.  It was me that
learned him all his new stuff--science, and machinery, and
aeroplanes, and things like that.  He didn't know nothink but Latin
and Greek and history and things up till then.  Here's the Cyclopædia
coming out now.  He never used it till I come.  He never even knew it
was four volumes short until I told him....  This next lot is mostly
little books he picked up cheap at second-hand places--mouldy little
things, most of 'em.  Some of them were useful, though.  Here's
one--'The Amateur Architect.'  It's queer how fussy people can be
about house-planning, and ventilation, and drainage, and things like
that, especially when they know they've got to live all their lives
in a house where they have no more say in the ventilation and
drainage than my aunt's cat!  Grampa had to learn nearly the whole of
this book, they wanted so many different bits of it.  Well, I think
we have fuel enough now for a start."

We staggered into the garden, with arms full, to where McAndrew's
bonfire was burning fiercely.  McAndrew himself, having regard to his
chronic interest in other people's business, I had despatched upon an
errand.  Soon the Encyclopædia and the theological works were
engulfed in flame.  Some odd volumes followed.  I cremated my old
friend Robert Southey with my own hands.  This done, we returned to
the packing-case and delved again.

"Did Mr. Baxter wish everything to be burned?" I asked.  "What about
the presentation volumes--the Shakespeare, for instance?"

"They was _all_ to be burned," announced Ada doggedly, lowering her
head into the case and avoiding my glance.

"Very well," I said.

Suddenly Ada looked up again, fiercely.

"Cross your heart and wish you may die if you look inside one of
them!" she commanded.

I meekly took the grisly oath.  But chance was too strong for us.
Ada, eager to keep me entirely aloof from the mystery, attempted to
lift four large volumes out of the case at once.  The top volume--the
Presentation Shakespeare itself--slipped off the others, fell upon
the floor, and lay upon its back wide open.  I could not help
observing that it was a London Telephone Directory.

For a moment Ada and I regarded one another steadily.  She did not
wink an eyelash.  Indeed, it was I who felt guilty.

"I may as well see them all now," I said.

"Please yourself," said Ada coldly.


It was a strange collection.  There were three Telephone Directories
in all--all old friends of mine, and peculiarly adapted, from their
size and dignity, for "Presentation" purposes.  (I think they were
Shakespeare, Milton, and Dante.  The Presentation Tennyson, however,
proved to be a Bulb Catalogue.)  There was a Hall and Knight's
Algebra, from which, in my presence, the old man had frequently and
most movingly quoted Keats.  Homer, as Pettigrew had correctly
indicated, was an elementary German grammar.  Plato's Apology was Mr.
Chardenal's First French Course.

"He used to get them cheaper than the real ones," explained Ada.
"Besides, what did it matter to him, anyhow?"

What indeed?  Poor old boy!

I worked through the whole collection--the miscellaneous flotsam of
second-hand bookshops and jumble sales--old novels sold in bundles;
old directories sold as waste paper.  Every book was neatly covered,
and decorated with a sprawling number--the sight of which, although
it advertised nothing to the outside world but the position of a book
on a shelf, had never failed, for more than thirty years, to switch
on the right record in that amazing repertoire.

Idly, I picked out the last book in the box.  It was a stumpy little
volume, bearing the number Twenty-Five.

"That's 'Orace," said Ada promptly.  "It's a real one--in Latin: only
it has the English on the opposite page.  We used that a lot."

I turned over the time-soiled leaves, and my eye encountered a
familiar passage.  I looked up.

"I think he would have liked to have a small inscription on the
coffin," I said.  "We can arrange it when we go back to the house.
There's a line here that seems to me to describe him very accurately."

"Read it," said Ada.  I did so:

"_Of upright life, and stainless purity._"


"Yes; he was all that," said Ada thoughtfully.  "Never done nothink
on nobody; and always the gentleman.  It will look nice on the plate.
How does it go in Latin?"

I read aloud the ancient tag.

"_Integer vitæ, scelerisque purus--_"


Ada nodded her head vigorously.

"Put it in Latin," she said.  "He'd have liked it that way.  Besides,
it'll learn Mould and Pettigrew, and that lot!"



THE END