se he held possession of them in fee-simple. I learned
thus much of his tastes one day during an hour we spent together in the
rear showroom of a dealer in antiquities.

I have spoken of Tom Folio as lonely, but I am inclined to think that
I mis-stated it. He had hosts of friends who used to climb the rather
steep staircase leading to that modest third-story front room which
I have imagined for him--a room with Turkey-red curtains, I like to
believe, and a rare engraving of a scene from Mr. Hogarth's excellent
moral of "The Industrious and Idle Apprentices" pinned against the
chimney breast. Young Chatterton, who was not always the best of
company, dropped in at intervals. There Mr. Samuel Pepys had a special
chair reserved for him by the window, where he could catch a glimpse of
the pretty housemaid over the way, chatting with the policeman at the
area railing. Dr. Johnson and the unworldly author of "The Deserted
Village" were frequent visitors, sometimes appearing together
arm-in-arm, with James Boswell, Esq., of Auchinleck, following
obsequiously behind. Not that Tom Folio did not have callers vastly more
aristocratic, though he could have had none pleasanter or wholesomer.
Sir Philip Sidney (who must have given Folio that copy of the
"Arcadia"), the Viscount St. Albans, and even two or three others before
whom either of these might have doffed his bonnet, did not disdain to
gather round that hearthstone. Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, Defoe, Dick
Steele, Dean Swift--there was no end to them! On certain nights, when
all the stolid neighborhood was lapped in slumber, the narrow street
stretching beneath Tom Folio's windows must have been blocked with
invisible coaches and sedan-chairs, and illuminated by the visionary
glare of torches borne by shadowy linkboys hurrying hither and thither.
A man so sought after and companioned cannot be described as lonely.

My memory here recalls the fact that he had a few friends less
insubstantial--that quaint anatomy perched on the top of a hand-organ,
to whom Tom Folio was wont to give a bite of his apple; and the
brown-legged little Neapolitan who was always nearly certain of a copper
when this multi-millionaire strolled through the slums on a Saturday
afternoon--Saturday probably being the essayist's pay-day. The withered
woman of the peanut-stand on the corner over against Faneuil Hall Market
knew him for a friend, as did also the blind lead-pencil merchant, whom
Tom Folio, on o