If the librarian has not the time at his command to read he has rare opportunities for reading character; and to be on good terms with his varied constituency he will have to be like St. Paul,--all things to all men. He must be polite, accommodating, possess his soul in patience, and be unselfish in his devotion to his readers. Generally, his contact with his constituency will be pleasant and agreeable, but he will have to deal with certain typical characters that will vex and fret him. There is the rummager, who snarls at all catalogues, and wants the freedom of the library, not for studious research, but to gratify his bookish propensity. "Five minutes with authors" is his watchword. The crank, who has been defined as a person with an idea, without brains to carry it out, is a frequenter of libraries. His inquiries are for what the library does not possess. This affords him a text for lecturing the librarian and the managers. If the librarian's sentiments are not in accord with that idea of his he threatens to expose him in the newspapers. The curiosity-hunter is another representative reader. He is brother to the rummager, but he does not despise catalogues. They exhibit the oddities of the library, at least the odd titles, such as Luther's "Vagabonds and Beggars," "The Foundling Hospital for Wit," or "The History of the Tread-mill." He passes quickly from one to the other, gleaning here and there till curiosity is satiated. Another reader helps the librarian materially in his statistics; if he calls for one book he calls for an armful. The subject he is investigating may require all the light the library can focus upon it; but he disposes of his armful so quickly that the query is, by what alchemy knowledge is appropriated so rapidly. It must be put to the credit of this age. The intelligent tramp is another _habitué_ of libraries. He is sometimes a desultory reader, sometimes he is a specialist, and he investigates with a profound air the most difficult problems; but that is as far as he goes. He is constitutionally lazy. He has some love for literature and science, but a far more appreciative love of leisure. He does nothing, produces nothing. Then there are walking encyclopædias. You cannot name any author or work that they have not an acquaintance with. They can talk glibly on any subject; they absorb like sponges, but they give out nothing. They have a passion for reading; but they either do not, or will not, make their knowledge available to others. The colored man who not long since applied to me for something on the toothache, as he was to deliver a lecture upon this interesting topic, was not of this non-productive class. If his monograph has been published it will be a good book for close classification.