upon the two windows, which were absurdly large, as he considered, but
compromised matters by removing the shutters and filling up the vacant
space with slender works of devotion. It was one of his conceits that
the rising sun smote first on an À'Kempis, for this he had often
noticed as he worked of a morning.

Book-shelves had long ago failed to accommodate Rabbi's treasures, and
the floor had been bravely utilised. Islands of books, rugged and
perpendicular, rose on every side; long promontories reached out from
the shore, varied by bold headlands; and so broken and varied was that
floor that the Rabbi was pleased to call it the Aegean Sea, where he
had his Lesbos and his Samos. It is absolutely incredible, but it is
all the same a simple fact, that he knew every book and its location,
having a sense of the feel as well as the shape of his favourites.
This was not because he had the faintest approach to orderliness, for
he would take down twenty volumes and never restore them to the same
place by any chance. It was a sort of motherly instinct by which he
watched over them all, and even loved prodigals who wandered over all
the study and then set off on adventurous journeys into distant rooms.
The restoration of an emigrant to his lawful home was celebrated by a
feast, in which, by a confusion of circumstances, the book played the
part of the fatted calf, being read afresh from beginning to end.
During his earlier and more agile years the Rabbi used to reach the
higher levels of his study by wonderful gymnastic feats, but after two
falls--one with three Ante-Nicene fathers in close pursuit--he
determined to call in assistance. This he did after an impressive
fashion. When he attended the roup at Pitfoodles--a day of historical
prices--and purchased in open competition, at three times its value, a
small stack ladder, Kilbogie was convulsed, and Mains had to offer
explanations.