Then with your leave, Colonel, said the lord of the castle, we will adjourn to my library, and there await the event. Upon the word Philip started from his corner, ran to the door and held it open for his father. A silent bow was interchanged at passing; the library was near at hand: the chairs were set ready, the candles lighted and the three gentlemen arranged themselves round the fire in their customary seats. I think, said De Lancaster, addressing himself to the colonel, amongst all the extravagancies I have been betrayed into, there is none that sits so light upon my conscience, as the passion I have had for collecting books. They certainly are a source of pleasure, said the colonel, to the readers of them. They cause great trouble to the writers, Philip answered in an under voice, as if talking to himself. Colonel Wilson was a disabled officer, having lost a leg in the service, and had now retired upon a sinecure government of twenty shillings per day to a small patrimonial estate in the near neighbourhood of Kray Castle: he was a few years younger than Robert De Lancaster, who had now kept his sixtieth birthday. Wilson had two sons; the elder was in the army, and the younger at the head of Westminster school: he was a man of strict probity, good understanding and an excellent heart. These were qualities, which De Lancaster knew how to appreciate as well as any man, and though his studies and pursuits had been widely different from those of the Colonel, yet he courted his company, and lived in perfect harmony with him as his friend and neighbour. Wilson on his part was not blind to the eccentricities of De Lancaster, but as they never disagreed except upon points, that did not interest the passions, their disputes were carried on without any mixture of acrimony, and only served to keep the conversation amicably alive. Wilson had lived in the world; De Lancaster in study and retirement: the latter would sometimes contend against assumptions, which to the former appeared to be little less than self-evident; in the mean time De Lancaster would oftentimes undertake to demonstrate paradoxes, that to Wilson’s unsophisticated understanding seemed perfectly inexplicable: these he was in the habit neither to admit, nor pertinaciously to contest: if he had done the first, there would have been a speedy end to the discussion; if he had pursued the latter course, there would have been no end at all, for De Lancaster was not often in the humour to recede from his positions.