y should refuse to sell me the
book; or perhaps they might not have a copy. I wondered what credentials
I could offer to override their scruples. I had made up my mind to tell
them, if they demurred, that I had once published an essay to prove that
the best book for reading in bed is the General Catalogue of the Oxford
University Press. This is quite true. It is a delightful compilation of
several thousand pages, on India paper. But to my pleasant surprise the
Oxonians seemed not at all surprised at the sudden appearance of one
asking, in a voice a little shaken with emotion, for a copy of the
"Miscellanies." Mr. Campion and Mr. Krause, who greeted me, were
kindness itself.

"Oh, yes," they said, "we have a copy." And in a minute it lay before
me. One of those little green and gold volumes in the Oxford Library of
Prose and Poetry. "How much?" I said. "A dollar forty." I paid it
joyfully. It is a good price for a book. Once I wrote a book myself that
sells (when it does sell) at that figure. When I was at Oxford I used to
buy the O.L.P.P. books for (I think) half a crown. In 1917 they were
listed at a dollar. Now $1.40. But I fear Kenko's estate doesn't get the
advantage of increased royalties.

The first thing to do was to find a place to read the book. My club was
fifteen blocks away. The smoking room of the Pennsylvania Station, where
I have done much reading, was three long blocks. But I must dip into
Kenko immediately. Down in the hallway I found a shoe-shining stand,
with a bowl of indirect light above it. The artist was busy in the
barber shop near-by. Admirable opportunity. I mounted the throne and
fell to. The first thing I saw was a quaint Japanese woodcut of a buxom
maiden washing garments in a rapidly purling stream. She was treading
out a petticoat with her bare feet, presumably on a flat stone. In a
black storm-cloud above a willow tree a bearded supernatural being, with
hands spread in humorous deprecation, gazes down half pleased, half
horrified. And the caption is, "Did not the fairy Kume lose his
supernatural powers when he saw the white legs of a girl washing
clothes?" Yet be not dismayed. Kenko is no George Moore.

By and bye the shoeshiner came out and found me reading. He was
apologetic. "I didn't know you were here," he said. "Sorry to keep you
waiting." Fortunately my shoes needed shining, as they generally do. He
shined them, and I still sat reading. He was puzzled, and tried to make
out the