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قراءة كتاب The Unpublishable Memoirs

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The Unpublishable Memoirs

The Unpublishable Memoirs

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 6

closed; the book was then removed; an instant later the click of the lock was heard. The other treasures in the vault were safe against the machinations of men!

Twenty minutes later another official called. Mr. Fields thought at first it was the same gentleman returning. He came for a book that had been under-valued at the Custom House.

"What! I've just given it to one of your men!"

"Impossible, Mr. Fields. This order was issued to me!"

"Why, that's a fake. Why, the one just presented to me had a big red government seal on it. It was signed by the head of the Treasury."

"Must have been a forgery. This is merely an order signed by Mr. Bond, the representative at New York. But it's genuine!"


The various theories of the robbery that were advanced would have filled many volumes. Even the British Museum was suspected!

Mr. Girard, the appraiser, felt in his inmost soul that Robert Hooker knew something about it. He told his story to the greatest detective in the world, who was in charge of the case for the Government. He did not want to issue a warrant for Hooker's arrest without any evidence whatever. He could not take into custody an honorable gentleman merely on suspicion. He had to have tangible proof.

The great detective accordingly employed three able assistants to examine every nook and corner of Hooker's house, including his library.

All this was done during the absence of the owner. The police even employed pickpockets to jostle him on the streets to make sure the book was not upon his person. Hooker had been under surveillance three hours after the robbery; it was either in the house, or he was not guilty.

Every book in his large library was examined. The police authorities finally had a complete catalogue of his collection, which some day will make interesting reading. The detectives took pen and pencil and noted the titles of every volume with the year of publication; they admitted that bibliography and literary work was not to their liking. It lacked excitement and they all agreed it was only fit for poets, professors, and other inferior persons.

The detectives found it much easier at first to look for a volume bound in red levant morocco with "Bacon's Essayes" in gold letters on the back. This was the description given them of the original.

Fearing some error, and being naturally suspicious, they were compelled to be scholarly and open the volumes, but they did not find one dated 1597, or which answered in any way to the form and matter of the missing volume.

After a month of search, the detectives came to the conclusion that the book was not in his possession. Robert Hooker was guiltless!

When he is not going out of an evening, Hooker will often remain by the fireside in his library, reading his favorite authors. When no one is about, he will go to the largest book-case, and in a conspicuous place in the centre of the third shelf, he will take down a small thick volume, which he handles tenderly. He will often touch it fondly with his lips. It is bound in shabby old black calf and is labelled on the back "Johnson's Lives." Opening the volume you will see the curious title-page, which reads: "The History of the Lives and Actions of the most famous Highwaymen and Robbers. By Charles Johnson. London. Printed in the year 1738."

Sewed in the centre, and uniform in size, is another book which a short time before was one of the glories of the British Museum. It had been bereft of its red morocco covering.

It is destined to be the chief article of interest in another museum, to be founded for the use and instruction of the public for all time.

For Shakespeare and Bacon are immortal!




THE COLONIAL SECRETARY

One of the most eccentric characters in the book-world was Doctor Morton. He knew a great deal of the lore of books and made a splendid living by stealing them. Old volumes were meat and drink to him. He lived quietly and respectably in a small New England town where he was honored for his learning and piety.

Although Dr. Morton was a thief, a pilferer of libraries and collectors, he committed a far greater crime, for which it is impossible to forgive him. Murder, assassination, arson and treason were naught to this unspeakable thing. It was worse than the Seven Deadly Sins.

Doctor Morton was unlike the celebrated Spanish bibliophile, who, not being able to obtain it in any other way, killed a fellow-collector in order to secure a unique volume of early Castilian laws. He died upon the scaffold unrepentant, maintaining that the prize was worth it. All honor to poor Don Vincente of Aragon! His name shall always be tenderly cherished by lovers of books!

Doctor Morton sold the books he stole! This, in the calendar of bookish misdemeanors, is the crime of crimes.

Now this respectable citizen of Connecticut was a man of parts. There was no gainsaying his knowledge. His home was beautifully furnished, for he was a person of excellent taste. He would point to an old Italian cabinet in his living-room, and say to himself: "I paid for that with the first edition of Milton's 'Paradise Lost,' and, as to the Chinese Chippendale table: that was bought from the proceeds of the Elzevir 'Cæsar.'"

Sometimes his friends would be astounded at his unintelligible speech. He would say in an unconscious moment: "Bring in the Vanity Fair in Parts!" meaning nothing else but an antique astral lamp, that he had exchanged for the first edition of Thackeray's immortal novel, or he would exclaim to his maid at tea-time: "Sarah, use to-day the uncut 'Endymion' from the Sterling Collection," pointing at the same time to a beautiful old silver tray. All the furnishings in his home represented a book "borrowed" from some famous library, and then shamelessly sold and the money expended on household gods.

Doctor Morton obtained the books of other men by many devious ways. For instance, he would write to a collector under the name of a well-known amateur, and always upon the most exquisite stationery, requesting the loan for a few days of the third quarto of Hamlet; he was writing a brochure on the early editions of Shakespeare, and it was necessary, in the holy cause of scholarship to inspect the volume.

Alas! Poor Yorick!

The collector would send the book, and that was the last he would hear of it.

Morton would borrow a wonderful old woodcut by Albrecht Dürer, in pursuit of his investigations in the early history of engraving, and return in its place in the old frame a modern facsimile, stained to look like the original, and which the owner might not discover until years after.

It is not our purpose to chronicle the activities of this New England worthy, however interesting and instructive they may be. It was Doctor Morton's well-known coup in connection with the Welford library that brings him into this story.

Thomas Pennington Welford was growing old. He was a Quaker, a descendant of the Penningtons that came over with William Penn. He lived in an old house on Arch Street in Philadelphia, just a stone's throw from Benjamin Franklin's grave.

He was a Quaker of the old school; was known as conservative by members of the Meeting-House; by others, as "close" and "tight-fisted."

Welford gloried in this saving habit. He was considered quite wealthy by his heirs, who were the only ones who approved of his penurious ways.

When he arrived at the age of seventy, he determined to put his house in order. He would sell his curiosities and his useless household furnishings to the highest bidder.

When Doctor Morton called one hot day in summer, Welford was in the act of examining his books, before an old mahogany case that looked as if it had come over with the first Pennington.

"Good-morning, Mr. Welford, you seem pleasantly engaged."

"Yes, sir. I'm looking over some old things. I want to get rid of everything that I can do without."

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