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There is no lettering outside; so that he who lounges past my humble shelves, seldom dreams of opening the anonymous little book in green. There it stands; day after day, week after week, year after year; and no one but myself regards it. But I make up for all neglects, with my own abounding love for it. But let us open the volume.
Bob, the image of terrified consternation, stood in the midst of a débris of glass, his mouth open, and his hair standing-upright. The glass bottles and jars of the establishment had flown from their shelves, causing the unhappy Bob to believe that the world had come to an end. But what was the débris there, compared to the débris in the next room, Jan's!
Were I to say "This little fancy business is not mine"; with a lithe sweep of his easily-turning hand around him, to comprehend the various objects on the shelves; "it is the little business of a Christian young gentleman who places me, his servant, in trust and charge here, and to whom I am accountable for every single bead," they would laugh.
The other shelves, placed across the room, were moved to the studio, which is so large that it has space for story-telling, or oftener story-reading. The winter of the Dickens centennial, through the month of February, the beginnings of "David Copperfield," "Nicholas Nickleby," "Dombey and son" and "Great expectations" were read.
It is, in fact, a museum, a private collection made by the baron himself; and the books that fill the shelves are works relating to natural history alone. In a man of military aspect an old veteran with snow-white hair, and grand moustaches of like hue such as he who is seated at the table you would scarce expect to meet the lover of a study so pacific in its character as that of natural history?
Need we say what was the consequence of this rude assault on the legs of the aforementioned dresser, supporting, as it did, this huge superstructure of shelves and crockery? Scarcely. But we will.
They fell to work with a zest the like of which they had not known since their first entrance into the Boarded-up House. It was no easy task to remove the armfuls of books necessary to get at the door behind, and then push and shove and struggle with the dusty shelves.
A red carpet was on the floor and a red-shaded lamp hung from the ceiling, which was conventionally white-washed. Although there was no fireplace, the room was immoderately hot, and heavy with the perfume of roses. On three little tables were great bowls filled with roses, and there were other bowls containing roses in gaps between the books on the open shelves.
Some colored prints of Harunobu, with which Trent promised himself a better acquaintance, hung on what little wall-space was unoccupied by books. These had a very uninspiring appearance of having been bought by the yard and never taken from their shelves. Bound with a sober luxury, the great English novelists, essayists, historians and poets stood ranged like an army struck dead in its ranks.
Immediately beyond that the bottom shelves rapidly down to a depth of 2000 fathoms, so that if Columbus was sounding as he came south he would find no bottom there. Below what are called the Ridings Rocks, however, the land sweeps to the south and east in a long sheltered bay, and to the south of these rocks there is good anchorage and firm holding-ground in about eight fathoms of water.
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