neither knew, until that moment, of the existence
of the other; and yet there it is! They met; and out of that
apparently accidental meeting there has sprung up a friendship that
many changes cannot change, and a love that many waters cannot quench.
Either would cross all the continents and oceans of the world to-day to
find the other; but as they remember how they met for the first time it
seems too queer to be credible. And they lie back in their easy chairs
and laugh again.

II

That is why I laugh at my books. Some day I intend to draw up a list
of them and divide them into classes. In one class I shall put the
books that I bought, once upon a time, because I was given to
understand that they were the right sort of books to have. Everybody
else had them; and my shelves would therefore be scarcely decent
without them. I purchased them, accordingly, and they have stood on
the shelves there ever since. As far as I know they have done nobody
the slightest harm in all their long untroubled lives. Indeed, they
have imparted such an air of gravity, and such an odour of sanctity, to
the establishment as must have had a steadying effect on their less
sombre companions. But it is not at these formidable volumes that I am
laughing. I would not dare. I glance at them with reverential awe,
and am more than half afraid of them. Then, again, there are other
books that I bought because I felt that I needed them. And so I did,
more than perhaps I guessed when I bore them proudly home. Glorious
times I have had with them. I look up at them gratefully and lovingly.
It is not at these that I am laughing. But there are others, old and
trusted friends, that came into my life in the oddest possible way. I
do not mean that I stole them. I mean rather that they stole me. They
seemed to pounce out at me, and before I knew what had happened I
belonged to them: I certainly did not seek them. In some cases I never
heard of their existence until after they became my own. They have
since proved invaluable to me, and I can scarcely review our long
companionship without emotion. Yet when I glance up at them, and
remember the whimsical way in which we met for the first time, I can
scarce restrain my laughter.

III

It was like this. Years ago I went to an auction sale. A library was
being submitted to the hammer. The books were all tied up in lots.
The work had evidently been done by somebody who knew as much about