I attended to the invalid's immediate wants, and then overhauled him generally. He was not what an insurance agent would have termed "a good life." After that, I was introduced to the library, which occupied the wall opposite to the bed. It consisted of a couple of mahogany bookcases, of solid Victorian workmanship, with locked glass doors lined with faded green silk. Ada Weeks produced a key from under her grandfather's pillow and unlocked one of the doors, revealing the books. They were all neatly covered in brown paper. There were no titles on the backs, but each book bore a number, in sprawling, irregular figures. "There, sir!" announced my patient, with simple pride. "There you behold the accumulated wealth of a man who is just as wealthy as he wishes to be!" "Rats!" remarked a sharp voice from the recesses of the library; but the old gentleman appeared not to hear. "It dates from the lamented death of the late Archdeacon. There are a hundred and seventy-nine volumes in all. The little Southey is the last arrival. Show it to us, Ada." Miss Weeks extracted Volume One Hundred and Seventy-Nine from the lowest shelf, and handed it to the old man. He turned over the pages lovingly. "Here is the passage which made us acquainted, sir," he said. "A delightful thing." He produced spectacles from somewhere in the bed, adjusted them, and read: "_My days among the Dead are passed: Around me I behold (Where'er these casual eyes are cast) The mighty minds of old: My never-failing friends are they, With whom--With whom--_" He faltered. "'_With whom I converse day by day_,'" said Ada Weeks in a matter-of-fact voice. "Don't strain your eyes." "You are right, my dear," admitted Mr. Baxter, laying down the book. "The type is somewhat small. But this little poem is strangely suggestive of my own condition. It is called 'The Scholar'--just about an old man living in the past among his books. I have read it to myself many a time since last I saw you, sir. Put it back, Ada; and show the Doctor an older friend. Something out of the late Archdeacon's library--say Number Fourteen." Miss Ada pulled down the volume indicated, blew viciously upon the top edges, and handed it to me. It proved to be part of an almost obsolete Encyclopædia. "A useful little compendium of knowledge," was Mr. Baxter's comment. "Unfortunately, I have not the set complete--only eight volumes. They go as far as _Pocahontas_. There are four more, really." "_Prairie Oyster to Zymotic_," confirmed the ever-ready Miss Weeks.