What a calm and pleasant seclusion the library presents after the brawl and bustle of the newspaper-room! There is never anybody here. English gentlemen get up such a prodigious quantity of knowledge in their early life that they leave off reading soon after they begin to shave, or never look at anything but a newspaper. How pleasant this room is--isn't it? with its sober draperies, and long calm lines of peaceful volumes--nothing to interrupt the quiet--only the melody of Horner's nose as he lies asleep upon one of the sofas. What is he reading? Hah, _Pendennis_, No. VII.--hum, let us pass on. Have you read _David Copperfield_, by the way? How beautiful it is--how charmingly fresh and simple! In those admirable touches of tender humour--and I should call humour, Bob, a mixture of love and wit--who can equal this great genius? There are little words and phrases in his books which are like personal benefits to the reader. What a place it is to hold in the affections of men! What an awful responsibility hanging over a writer! What man, holding such a place, and knowing that his words go forth to vast congregations of mankind--to grown folks, to their children, and perhaps to their children's children--but must think of his calling with a solemn and humble heart? May love and truth guide such a man always! It is an awful prayer; may Heaven further its fulfilment! And then, Bob, let the _Record_ revile him--See, here's Horner waking up--How do you do, Horner? [Footnote 19: _Who's Who_ first appeared in 1849. In those days it was little more than a bare list of dignitaries and officials. It was not until 1897 that the personal note was sounded and details added which have swelled the slim volume to its present portentous bulk.] [Sidenote: _Tobacco Tabooed_] Smoking was not yet a national habit. It was the height of bad form to be seen smoking in the street. Even in clubs it was frowned upon, and Thackeray, in his "Snob Papers," writes in ironic vein respecting "that den of abomination which, I am told, has been established in _some_ clubs, called the Smoking Room." The embargo on pipes was not removed for many years. A well-known judge removed his name from a well-known club about the year 1890 because the committee refused to tolerate pipe-smoking on their precincts. _Punch_ early ranged himself on the side of liberty, and in 1856 was greatly incensed against the British Anti-Tobacco Society, as against all "Anti's," "who, not content with hating balls, plays, and other amusements themselves, want to enforce their small antipathies on the rest of us." [Illustration: GROUP IN THEATRE BOX]