I resumed my reading, and would doubtless have forgotten the vague,
evanescent impression, had it not been that, having occasion a
moment after to consult a certain volume, I found but a gap in the
row where it ought to have stood, and the same instant remembered
that just there I had seen, or fancied I saw, the old man in search
of a book. I looked all about the spot but in vain. The next
morning, however, there it was, just where I had thought to find it!
I knew of no one in the house likely to be interested in such a book.

Three days after, another and yet odder thing took place.

In one of the walls was the low, narrow door of a closet, containing
some of the oldest and rarest of the books. It was a very thick
door, with a projecting frame, and it had been the fancy of some
ancestor to cross it with shallow shelves, filled with book-backs
only. The harmless trick may be excused by the fact that the titles
on the sham backs were either humorously original, or those of books
lost beyond hope of recovery. I had a great liking for the masked
door.

To complete the illusion of it, some inventive workman apparently
had shoved in, on the top of one of the rows, a part of a volume
thin enough to lie between it and the bottom of the next shelf:
he had cut away diagonally a considerable portion, and fixed
the remnant with one of its open corners projecting beyond the
book-backs. The binding of the mutilated volume was limp vellum,
and one could open the corner far enough to see that it was
manuscript upon parchment.

Happening, as I sat reading, to raise my eyes from the page, my