The most painful subjects are the
unfortunates that have lost a cover. Bound a hundred years ago, perhaps,
and one of the rich old browned covers gone--what a pity! Do you know
what to do about it? I 'll tell you,--no, I 'll show you. Look at this
volume. M. T. Ciceronis Opera,--a dozen of 'em,--one of 'em minus half
his cover, a poor one-legged cripple, six months ago,--now see him.
--He looked very respectably indeed, both covers dark, ancient, very
decently matched; one would hardly notice the fact that they were not
twins.
-I 'll tell you what I did. You poor devil, said I, you are a disgrace
to your family. We must send you to a surgeon and have some kind of a
Taliacotian operation performed on you. (You remember the operation as
described in Hudibras, of course.) The first thing was to find a subject
of similar age and aspect ready to part with one of his members. So I
went to Quidlibet's,--you know Quidlibet and that hieroglyphic sign of
his with the omniscient-looking eye as its most prominent feature,--and
laid my case before him. I want you, said I, to look up an old book of
mighty little value,--one of your ten-cent vagabonds would be the sort of
thing,--but an old beggar, with a cover like this, and lay it by for me.
And Quidlibet, who is a pleasant body to deal with,--only he has insulted
one or two gentlemanly books by selling them to me at very low-bred and
shamefully insufficient prices,--Quidlibet, I say, laid by three old
books for me to help myself from, and did n't take the trouble even to
make me pay the thirty cents for 'em.
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