I put aside the objection, and we entered. With anxious courtesy
Christopherson led me up the narrow staircase to the second-floor landing,
and threw open a door. On the threshold I stood astonished. The room was a
small one, and would in any case have only just sufficed for homely
comfort, used as it evidently was for all daytime purposes; but certainly a
third of the entire space was occupied by a solid mass of books, volumes
stacked several rows deep against two of the walls and almost up to the
ceiling. A round table and two or three chairs were the only
furniture--there was no room, indeed, for more. The window being shut, and
the sunshine glowing upon it, an intolerable stuffiness oppressed the air.
Never had I been made so uncomfortable by the odour of printed paper and
bindings.

'But,' I exclaimed, 'you said you had only a _few_ books! There must be
five times as many here as I have.'

'I forget the exact number,' murmured Christopherson, in great agitation.
'You see, I can't arrange them properly. I have a few more in--in the other
room.'

He led me across the landing, opened another door, and showed me a little
bedroom. Here the encumberment was less remarkable, but one wall had
completely disappeared behind volumes, and the bookishness of the air made
it a disgusting thought that two persons occupied this chamber every night.

We returned to the sitting-room, Christopherson began picking out books
from the solid mass to show me. Talking nervously, brokenly, with now and
then a deep sigh or a crow of laughter, he gave me a little light on his
history. I learnt that he had occupied these lodgings for the last eight
years; that he had been twice married; that the only child he had had, a