CHAPTER VI

A CONFERENCE


The book-worms' row, hardly a street, more a short-cut passage between
two important thoroughfares, had through the course of many years
exercised a subtle fascination for pedant, pedagogue or itinerant
litterateur. At one end of the way was rush and bustle; at the other,
more rush and bustle; here might be found the comparative hush of the
tiny stream that for a short interval has left the parent current. Dusty
and musty shops looked out on either side, and within on shelves, or
without on stands, unexpected bargains lay carelessly about, rare
Horaces or Ovids, Greek tragedies, ponderous volumes of the golden age
of the English poets and philosophers. Truth nestled in dark corners;
knowledge lay hidden in frayed covers and beauty enshrined herself
behind cobwebs.

Not that the thoroughfare, in its entirety, was devoted to books; nor
that it housed no other people than bibliomaniacs or antiquarians!
Higher, above the little shops, small rooms, reached by rickety
stairways, offered quiet corners for divers and sundry gentlemen whose
occupations called for discreet and retired nooks.

In one of these places, described on the door as "a private,
confidential, inquiry office," sat, on the morning following John