you might fancy that the creature still lived in this labyrinth, to nip you between his toothless gums—­for the beast grows old—­at some darker corner.  There is a story of the place, that once a raw clerk having been sent to rummage in the basement, his candle tipped off the shelf.  He was left in so complete darkness that his fears overcame his judgment and for two hours he roamed and babbled among the barrels.  Nor was his absence discovered until the end of the day when, as was the custom, the clerks counted noses at the door.  When they found him, he bolted up the steps, nor did he cease his whimper until he had reached the comforting twilight of the outer world.  He served thereafter in the shop a full two years and had a beard coming—­so the story runs—­before he would again venture beyond the third turning of the passage; to the stunting of his scholarship, for the deeper books lay in the farther windings.

Or it may appear credible that in ages past a jealous builder contrived the place.  Having no learning himself and being at odds with those of better opportunity, he twisted the pattern of the house.  Such was his evil temper, that he set the steps at a dangerous hazard in the dark, in order that scholars—­whose eyes are bleared at best—­might risk their legs to the end of time.  Those of strict orthodoxy have even suspected the builder to have been an atheist, for they have observed what double joints and steps and turnings confuse the passage to the devouter books—­the Early Fathers in particular being up a winding stair where even the soberest reader might break his neck.  Be these things as they may, leather bindings in sets of “grenadier uniformity” ornament the upper and lighter rooms.  Biography straggles down a hallway, with a candle needed at the farther end.  A room of dingy plays—­Wycherley, Congreve and their crew—­looks out through an area grating.  It was through even so foul an eye, that when alive, they looked upon the world.  As for theology, except for the before-mentioned Fathers, it sits in general and dusty convention on the landing to the basement, its snuffy sermons, by a sad misplacement—­or is there an ironical intention?—­pointing the way to the eternal abyss below.

It was in this shop that I inquired whether there was published a book on piracy in Cornwall.  Now, I had lately come from Tintagel on the Cornish coast, and as I had climbed upon the rocks and looked down upon the sea, I had wondered to myself whether, if the knowledge were put out before me, I could compose a story of Spanish treasure and pirates.  For I am a prey to such giddy ambition.  A foul street—­if the buildings slant and topple—­will set me thinking delightfully of murders.  A wharf-end with water lapping underneath and bits of rope about will set me itching for a deep-sea plot.  Or if I go on broader range and see in my fancy a broken castle on a hill, I’ll clear its moat and sound trumpets on its walls.  If there is pepper in my mood, I’ll storm its dungeon.  Or in a softer moment I’ll trim its unsubstantial towers with pageantry and rest upon my elbow until I fall asleep.  So being cast upon the rugged Cornish coast whose cliffs are so swept with winter winds that the villages sit for comfort in the hollows, it was to be expected that my thoughts would run toward pirates.