just as an apple reddens--as, indeed, it had.

I do not propose to solemnly enumerate and laboriously describe these
good things, because I hardly think they would serve to distinguish
Narcissus, except in respect of luck, from other bookmen in the first
furor of bookish enthusiasm. They were such volumes as Mr. Pendennis ran
up accounts for at Oxford. Narcissus had many other points in common
with that gentleman. Such volumes as, morning after morning, sadden
one's breakfast-table in that Tantalus _menu_, the catalogue. Black
letter, early printed, first editions Elizabethan and Victorian, every
poor fly ambered in large paper, etc. etc.; in short, he ran through the
gamut of that craze which takes its turn in due time with marbles,
peg-tops, beetles, and foreign stamps--with probably the two exceptions
of Bewick, for whom he could never batter up an enthusiasm, and
'facetiae.' These latter needed too much camphor, he used to say.

His two most cherished possessions were a fine copy of the _Stultitiae
Laus_, printed by Froben, which had once been given by William Burton,
the historian, to his brother Robert, when the latter was a youngster of
twenty; and a first edition of one of Walton's lives, 'a presentation
copy from the author.' The former was rich with the autographs and
marginalia of both brothers, and on the latter a friend of his has
already hung a tale, which may or may not be known to the Reader. In the
reverent handling of these treasures, two questions inevitably forced
themselves upon me: where the d----l Narcissus, an apprentice, with an
allowance that would hardly keep most of us in tobacco, had found the
money for such indulgences; and how he could find in his heart to sell
them again so soon. A sorrowful interjection, as he closed his bag,
explained all:--