After ordering supper my host picked up the Gabrielle d’Estrées volume and exhibited it in a most tantalizing manner.
“You paid a very high price for that little missal,” I ventured.
He looked up, surprised. “How do you know?”
“I was there—at the auction.” At that moment the waiter brought two long-stemmed glasses filled with a golden-brown liquid. It was bitter and warming. “I was the underbidder,” I said.
“You bid me up?” The waiter replaced our glasses with others. We drank silently. “So you wanted this book? Well, well! You love books?” I nodded. His face seemed to soften. “And what would you have given for it?” He handed the volume across the table to me and my fingers trembled.
“All that I have in the world,” I said dramatically. “Fifty-seven dollars.” The waiter came forward with our supper. It was a beautiful repast worthy of the skill of Dennis McGowan himself.
As we ate I listened to my new friend through an ever-thickening haze. He told me of his interest in books and manuscripts. He was not a collector exactly, he explained, but a man who bought intermittently as the desire came upon him.
PAGE FROM ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF WAGNER’S
“DIE MEISTERSINGER”
“And now,” said he, “since you wanted this book so badly, will you accept it as a proof of our newly made friendship?” He leaned across the table and I grasped his hand. He insisted upon my accepting the volume as a gift! Then we talked of books and bookmen until far into the night. We walked home in the early morning air.