The book-borrower is, perhaps, a greater curse than the thief, for he simulates a virtue to which the latter makes no pretension. The book-plate of a certain French collector bore this text from the parable of the Ten Virgins: 'Go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.' 'Sir,' said a man of wit to an acquaintance who lamented the difficulty which he found in persuading his friends to return the volumes that he had lent them, 'Sir, your acquaintances find, I suppose, that it is much more easy to retain the books themselves than what is contained in them.' A certain wise physician took a gentle way of reminding the borrower who dog-eared or tore the pages of his books: pasted on the fly-leaf of each of his books is a printed tag, bearing this legend: 'Library of Galen, M.D. "And if a man borrow aught of his neighbour and it be hurt, he shall surely make it good," Exodus xxii. 14.' A much more effective plan is that described some time ago in the _Graphic_ by Mr. Ashby Sterry. In all the books of a certain cunning bibliophile he had the price written in plain figures; when anyone asked him for the loan of a book he invariably replied, 'Yes, with pleasure,' and, looking in the volume, further added, 'I see the price of this work is L2 17s. 6d.'--or whatever the value might happen to be--'you may take it at this figure, which will, of course, be refunded when the volume is returned.' If a person really wished to read the volume he would of course be glad to leave this deposit; and if he did not return it he would not be altogether an unmitigated thief. Mr. John Ashton relates, in his volume on the 'Wit, Humour, and Satire of the Seventeenth Century,' a curious anecdote which may be here quoted: 'Master Mason, of Trinity Colledge, sent his pupil to another of the Fellows to borrow a Book of him, who told him, _I am loathe to lend my books out of my chamber, but if it please thy Tutor to come and read upon it in my chamber, he shall as long as he will._'