Mr. Brock remembered the well-worn volumes which had been found in the usher’s bag. “The books made it endurable to you,” he said.
The eyes of the castaway kindled with a new light.
“Yes!” he said, “the books—the generous friends who met me without suspicion—the merciful masters who never used me ill! The only years of my life that I can look back on with something like pride are the years I passed in the miser’s house. The only unalloyed pleasure I have ever tasted is the pleasure that I found for myself on the miser’s shelves. Early and late, through the long winter nights and the quiet summer days, I drank at the fountain of knowledge, and never wearied of the draught. There were few customers to serve, for the books were mostly of the solid and scholarly kind. No responsibilities res
