who wished his
neck as long as the worm of a still, that he might so much the longer
enjoy the flavor of the draught! Thus, it is a prolonged excitement of
purchase, if you feel for six months in a slight doubt whether the book
is honestly your own or not. Had you paid down, that would have been the
end of it. There would have been no affectionate and beseeching look of
your books at you, every time you saw them, saying, as plain as a book's
eyes can say, "Do not let me be taken from you."

Moreover, buying books before you can pay for them promotes caution. You
do not feel quite at liberty to take them home. You are married. Your
wife keeps an account-book. She knows to a penny what you can and what
you cannot afford. She has no "speculation" in _her_ eyes. Plain figures
make desperate work with airy "_somehows_." It is a matter of no small
skill and experience to get your books home, and into their proper
places, undiscovered. Perhaps the blundering express brings them to the
door just at evening. "What is it, my dear?" she says to you. "Oh!
nothing--a few books that I cannot do without." That smile! A true
housewife that loves her husband can smile a whole arithmetic at him at
one look! Of course she insists, in the kindest way, in sympathizing
with you in your literary acquisition. She cuts the strings of the
bundle (and of your heart), and out comes the whole story. You have
bought a complete set of costly English books, full bound in calf, extra
gilt! You are caught, and feel very much as if bound in calf yourself,
and admirably lettered.

Now, this must not happen frequently. The books must be smuggled home.
Let them be sent to some near place. Then, when your wife has a
headache, or is out making a call, or has lain down, run the books
across the frontier and threshold, hastily undo them, stop only for one
loving glance as you put them away in the closet, or behind other books
on the shelf, or on the topmost shelf. Clear away the twine and
wrapping-paper, and every suspicious circumstance. Be very careful not
to be too kind. That often brings on detection. Only the other day we
heard it said, somewhere, "Why, how good you have been lately. I am
really afraid that you have been carrying on mischief secretly." Our
heart smote us. It was a fact. That very day we had bought a few books
which "we could not do without." After a while you can bring out one
volume, accidentally, and leave it on the table. "Why, my dear