The poor old fellow stood up. “I am going, Colas,” he said gently. “I can see that the sight of me puts you out, but I thought--I had brought you this book,--_Lives of Celebrated Men_, by Plutarch; it is translated by Jacques Amyot, Bishop of Auxerre;--would you like it?--it might amuse you. It would perhaps be some consolation or companionship!” I could see that his mind was not quite made up, for it was like drawing teeth for him to lend his books, which he cherished even more dearly than his ducats. If any one dared touch one of the precious volumes in his library, he was like a lover who sees rude hands laid on the lady of his affections. I was touched and softened by the greatness of the sacrifice, and held out my hand to my old comrade, telling him how grateful I was for his kindness to such a brute as I had shown myself to be; and I took the book from his reluctant fingers. “Take good care of it,” said he. “Make your mind easy, it shall lie under my pillow,” and with this reassuring reply I let him depart. Plutarch of Cheronæus was a stout little volume, as broad as it was long, of about thirteen hundred closely printed pages; the words all heaped one upon another, like corn in a bin. “There is three years’ provender there, for three donkeys,” thought I. At the head of each chapter were round medallion portraits of the illustrious subjects of the memoirs, surrounded by wreaths of laurel; these diverted me extremely; they only lacked a bunch of parsley in their mouths to be complete. “What are all these Greeks and Romans to me?” I thought. “We are living, and they are long since dead, and can teach me nothing but what I knew before; that man is a wicked creature, but agreeable enough; that age improves wine, and spoils women; that in all countries, the big fishes swallow the little ones, and the weak jeer at their oppressors.--These Romans are terrible fellows to make long speeches; and I am not by any means opposed to eloquence; only I want to warn these gentlemen that turn and turn about is fair play.” Fluttering the leaves with a condescending air, I threw my eyes along the pages, as an angler draws his line along a stream, and hang me if I did not hook something at the very first cast. No one ever saw better fishing; the cork went under as soon as it touched the water; and such fish as I pulled up! Gold and silver, some with shining scales like jewels, scattering a shower of sparks around them; jumping and twisting, too, with quivering fins, and flapping tails. To think of my saying that they were dead!