all over the house with pathetic inquiries, "Have you seen
Volume IV. of _Dumas' Memoirs_?" "No, but have you noticed Volume I. of
_Fors Clavigera_?" It is like a game of "Families."

The worst of the game is that one cannot concentrate. I may ascend the
stairs bent wholly upon securing Volume III. of PROTHERO AND COLERIDGE'S
_Byron_, and then chancing to observe Volume II. of INGPEN'S _Boswell_ I
leap at it in ecstasy and, forgetting all about the noble misanthrope,
hasten back with this prize and join it to its lonely mate.

My _Dictionary of National Biography_, for all its fifty-eight volumes,
not counting Supplements or Errata, was simple, on account of its size
and unusual appearance. But what word can I find to express the
annoyance and trouble given us by a small Pope in sheepskin? We roamed
the house together--there are shelves in every room--striving to collect
this family; but three of them are still on the loose. There is a
Balzac, too, in a number of volumes not mentioned on any title-page and
not numbered individually, so that time alone can tell whether that
group is ever fully assembled. But as we placed them side by side we
could almost hear them sigh after their long separation--though whether
with satisfaction or annoyance who shall say? Volumes, may be, can get
as tired of their companions as human beings can.

During such an occupation as this a vast deal of time vanishes also in
trying to remember where it was that I saw that copy of _Friendship's
Garland_, so as to place it with the other Arnolds. Even more time goes
in dipping into books which I had clean forgotten I possessed, such as
_The Cricketers' Manual_, by "Bat," in which my eyes alighted upon this
excellent story:

"The Duchess de Berri, being present at a match between two clubs of
Englishmen at Dieppe [in 1824], looked on very attentively for nearly
three hours, then, turning to one of her attendants, said, '_Mais, quand
est-ce que le jeu va commencer?_'" But the time which I have frittered
away in this frivolity is as nothing compared with that wasted by
Parolles, who has a way of subsiding upon the ground wherever she may
happen to be and instantly becoming absorbed in the printed page. It is
not as if she exercised any selective power, as I do. All books are the
same to her in that they contain type on which the eye can fasten to the
detriment of her labour. In every room I have stumbled over her long
black legs as she thus abus