at any rate, if other men spend money on dinners and on sport, on
carved furniture and gay clothing, may he not also have one luxury in
life? His conscience, however, does give painful twinges, and he
will leave the Pines Horace, which he has been handling delicately
for three weeks, in hopeless admiration of its marvellous typography,
and be outside the door before a happy thought strikes him, and he
returns to buy it, after thirty minutes' bargaining, with perfect
confidence and a sense of personal generosity. What gave him this
relief and now suffuses his very soul with charity? It was a date
which for the moment he had forgotten and which has occurred most
fortunately. To-morrow will be the birthday of a man whom he has
known all his days and more intimately than any other person, and
although he has not so high an idea of the man as the world is good
enough to hold, and although he has often quarrelled with him and
called him shocking names--which tomcats would be ashamed of--yet he
has at the bottom a sneaking fondness for the fellow, and sometimes
hopes he is not quite so bad after all. One thing is certain, the
rascal loves a good book and likes to have it when he can, and
perhaps it will make him a better man to show that he has been
remembered and that one person at least believes in him, and so the
bookman orders that delightful treasure to be sent to his own address
in order that next day he may present it--as a birthday present--to
himself.

Concerning tastes in pleasure there can be no final judgment, but for
the bookman it may be said, beyond any other sportsman, he has the
most constant satisfaction, for to him there is no close season,
except the spring cleaning which he furiously resents, and only
allows once in five years, and his autumn holiday, when he takes some
six handy volumes with him. For him there are no hindrances of