This sort of thing is common enough, but there is another case that may prove deceptive if you undertake to judge from appearances.  Once in a while you will come on a house where you will find a family of readers and almost no library.  Some of the most indefatigable devourers of literature have very few books.  They belong to book clubs, they haunt the public libraries, they borrow of friends, and somehow or other get hold of everything they want, scoop out all it holds for them, and have done with it.  When I want a book, it is as a tiger wants a sheep.  I must have it with one spring, and, if I miss it, go away defeated and hungry.  And my experience with public libraries is that the first volume of the book I inquire for is out, unless I happen to want the second, when that is out.

—­I was pretty well prepared to understand the Master’s library and his account of it.  We seated ourselves in two very comfortable chairs, and I began the conversation.

-I see you have a large and rather miscellaneous collection of books.  Did you get them together by accident or according to some preconceived plan?

—­Both, sir, both,—­the Master answered.  When Providence throws a good book in my way, I bow to its decree and purchase it as an act of piety, if it is reasonably or unreasonably cheap.  I adopt a certain number of books every year, out of a love for the foundlings and stray children of other people’s brains that nobody seems to care for.  Look here.

He took down a Greek Lexicon finely bound in calf, and spread it open.

Do you see that Hedericus?  I had Greek dictionaries enough and to spare, but I saw that noble quarto lying in the midst of an ignoble crowd of cheap books, and marked with a price which I felt to be an insult to scholarship, to the memory of Homer, sir, and the awful shade of AEschylus.  I paid the mean price asked for it, and I wanted to double it, but I suppose it would have been a foolish sacrifice of coin to sentiment:  I love that book for its looks and behavior.  None of your “half-calf” economies in that volume, sir!  And see how it lies open anywhere!  There is n’t a book in my library that has such a generous way of laying its treasures before you.  From Alpha to Omega, calm, assured rest at any page that your choice or accident may light on.  No lifting of a rebellious leaf like an upstart servant that does not know his place and can never be taught manners, but tranquil, well-bred repose.  A book may be a perfect gentleman in its aspect and demeanor, and this book would be good company for personages like Roger Ascham and his pupils the Lady Elizabeth and the Lady Jane Grey.

The Master was evidently riding a hobby, and what I wanted to know was the plan on which he had formed his library.  So I brought him back to the point by asking him the question in so many words.