The Unpublishable Memoirs Part 9

While he was signing the subscription blank I made a wax impression of the key to the cases. That night I did a second story job. The window was open. I easily found the library. But where was the confounded book? I looked everywhere. There seemed to be millions of books. In one case I noticed a shelf that was uneven. I looked at it. I saw the name "Boccaccio." I placed the volume underneath my coat and left.

The evening papers were filled with the news. What could I do with the volume? I could not keep it in my room, as I feared the police would find it. I did not dream that it would be missed so soon, and I did not antic.i.p.ate all this fuss over a shabby old book. I tried to think of a place to hide it, but could not. One of the papers said that a Richard Hooker was the other crank who had bid for it at the auction sale. If I went to him now he would refuse to buy it and arrest me.

I tried another and surer course. That night I went to Hooker's house,--another second story job--and left the cursed book in the most conspicuous place in the library. The next day I called on him. I said I was Mr. Scott,--a detective. I accused him of stealing the book from Mr. Libro. He said I lied. I told him he had the book in his house now. From the expression on his face I knew I had him. He said he had found the book in his library, but had not taken it and did not know how it had got there. I asked him if he thought anyone would believe him. He said--No! Everyone would think he had stolen it.

Hooker offered me a thousand dollars to take the book and say nothing.

I accepted two thousand dollars in cash. I took the book, but where to hide it I did not know. It was under my coat when I was pa.s.sing 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. A thought struck me. I would place it where it would never be found. The people here have no time to read books; it was the best place of all. In a moment I was in the library; I threw the cursed old thing on one of the shelves. I left in great glee.

At the corner of 40th Street and the Avenue I was arrested by one of Captain Bunting's men. They tried to get something on me, but could not. I was innocent!

I am on my way to London to visit the British Museum, for I find the study of books profitable.

Yours very truly, B. PHILLIPS.

THE LADY OF THE BREVIARY

The Abelard Missal was lost to him forever.

When Mr. Richard Blaythwaite was alive, Robert Hooker had a small chance, one in ten thousand perhaps, of securing it and adding this beautiful memento of the Renaissance to his "museum of the imagination." But now that Blaythwaite was dead, all hope of owning it had vanished.

Hooker would not have hesitated, in the cause of the public, to have taken it by fair means or foul from Blaythwaite, but he would not rob a woman. He was singularly squeamish upon this point.

Richard Blaythwaite had left everything to his only daughter, including the famous Abelard missal.

It was a marvelous ma.n.u.script dating from the sixteenth century, and contained at the end the beautiful and tragic story of those mediaeval lovers, Abelard and Heloise.

The pictures that decorated the missal, however, were its chief glory.... They were the work of Giulio Clovio, and executed by the great miniaturist for Philip the Second of Spain. The full page illuminations, with the exquisite colors, heightened with gold, were worth a king's ransom, or a queen's reputation. The binding was in keeping with the superb quality of the breviary, being in old purple morocco, the royal arms of Castile impressed in gold upon the sides.

Hooker tried in every way but could not give up the idea of being its possessor. It haunted him at night, and during the day his mind constantly reverted to its matchless colors and quaint designs.

He knew Miss Blaythwaite slightly, having met her in former days at her father's house, when he used to delight in looking over his famous library. The pity of it all was that the missal was to be in the keeping of a woman. If it had gone to some collector who would treasure it as a delectable gift of the G.o.ds, it would not be so bad.

But to a woman! The thought almost drove him mad.

One evening, in despair, he resolved to call at the fine old house, and glance once more at the lovely picture of Abelard imprinting his last kiss upon the lips of Heloise.

He felt some misgivings, when he was told that Miss Blaythwaite was at home and would see him. He almost hated her, and he could not forbear the thought that the Abelard missal was no more to her than her pet dog, or the bracelet upon her fair wrist.

When she entered the room, he was taken aback. When he saw her some years ago, she was but a slip of a girl, with long hair down her back.

She was now tall and stately, with beautiful deep blue eyes. She was dressed simply; and Hooker thought exceedingly well, but he was not a judge. He knew more about the morocco covering of an old book than a lady's apparel.

"Good evening, Mr. Hooker. I'm glad you called," she said.

"Thank you, Miss Blaythwaite. It's been a long time since I've had the pleasure of seeing you."

"Yes, you've rather neglected us lately. Are you still interested in books? Poor father had quite a mania for them."

"That's what first brought me to the house. Do you remember how we used to spend hours going over his books?"

"Hours? It seemed ages to mother and me. Poor mother, how furious she used to be when father brought those dusty old books into the house.

She used to say that father threw away his money on them. He'd give a hundred dollars for a shabby old thing, when he could have bought a nice, modern edition for five."

At this, Robert Hooker was speechless!

"I suppose you would like to see some of the additions to the library,"

Miss Blaythwaite continued, "father bought books until he died. You know he caught pneumonia by going to an auction-sale, one cold day last winter. This is the book he bought,--but at what a cost!"

She took from the shelves which lined the walls, a small volume. It was a copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets, the first edition; published in 1609.

"And the strange part of it all, Mr. Hooker, I believe in my heart that papa never regretted its purchase."

Hooker was about to remark that it was worth the risk, but checked himself in time.

"It was foolish. Your father, however, was a true bibliophile."

Miss Blaythwaite returned this volume of volumes to its position in the case, and when Hooker saw it, he turned pale. She had put it in upside down--a terrible thing to do. One would have to stand upon his head to read the t.i.tle, and booklovers do not believe in gymnastics.

He immediately placed it in its proper position, carefully, tenderly--as if it had been a baby, which was precious to him, but not quite so precious as an old book or ma.n.u.script!

"Father could not bear us to put books in upside down, but mother and I would often forget, and the way father scolded, you would think we had committed a horrid crime."

At this, they both laughed.

When Hooker was shown the breviary, he lingered for a long time over its magic pages. He felt the cool vellum leaves with his fingers, for fear lest the missal would slip through his hand, and disappear forever!

For over two months, Hooker was a constant visitor at the Blaythwaite home. He became intimately acquainted with every book in the library; he could tell the exact date of publication of the early printed volumes; the place where it was printed; the name of the binder, and other useless information.

Even Miss Blaythwaite caught some of the contagion. She, who had formerly cared nothing for her father's "playthings," became interested in them. Sometimes she would take down from a shelf a volume of old English poetry, and become absorbed in the lyrical sweetness of the verse. Occasionally, she would read aloud to Hooker some beautiful poems that she had discovered in Ben Jonson, in Crashaw, or in Herrick; and he would tell her of his aspirations, and of the Museum that existed only in his mind. He told her of the wonderful things he already possessed.

Although Hooker had known Miss Blaythwaite for some time, she was to him always, the Lady of the Breviary.

When he felt the delicious warmth of her hand, he thought of the missal; when she was seated near him, poring over some old volume of forgotten lore, his mind turned to its wonderful binding, or its miraculous miniatures. Strange as it may seem, Miss Blaythwaite was nothing more to him than the guardian and sole owner of a book that his soul desired. Sometimes, when they were reading together some volume of Elizabethan verse, another caller would be announced; Hooker would be presented, and then he would retire gracefully to her father's library, leaving the field clear to his rival. This, of course, was not flattering to Miss Blaythwaite!

One night, Jack Worthing was there before him. He was a clean-cut, manly fellow, interested first in sports, and after that in business.

He had known Miss Blaythwaite for years. The talk turned, as it will always turn, when bibliophiles are present, upon books.

"I don't understand you fellows," said Worthing. "You think more of an old book than many people of their children!"

"Of course! Children often grow up into ill-mannered youths and conceited young ladies. Books always remain young and delightful!"

"But, confound it! You never read them. You have thousands around you all the time, and I bet you don't read ten a year."

"Rare books are meant to be carefully nurtured during our lives, and pa.s.sed on after our death to those who will appreciate them. Only college professors, students, scholars, and such people ever _read_ books," answered Hooker, contemptuously.

"I think book-men the most foolish cla.s.s of persons on earth," retorted Worthing. "Give me some good old sport, like boxing, or foot-ball, that makes your heart tingle, that causes the red blood to shoot through your veins--that makes life worth living! Man wasn't created to spend his life roaming around a dusky old library, when he can go out into G.o.d's pure air and enjoy the fields and the streams, the forests and the lakes!"

At this, Miss Blaythwaite seemed to smile approvingly.