[The Unpublishable Memoirs]
[The Three Trees]
[The Purple Hawthorn]
[The Disappearance of Shakespeare]
[The Colonial Secretary]
[In Defence of His Name]
["The Hundred and First Story"]
[The Lady of the Breviary]
[The Evasive Pamphlet]
[The Great Discovery]
[The Fifteen Joys of Marriage]
THE UNPUBLISHABLE MEMOIRS
It was very cruel.
He was dickering for one of the things he had desired for a life-time.
It was in New York at one of the famous book-stores of the metropolis. The proprietor had offered to him for one hundred and sixty dollars—exactly the amount he had in bank—the first and only edition of the "Unpublishable Memoirs" of Beau Brummel, a little volume issued in London in 1790, and one of two copies known, the other being in the famous "hidden library" of the British Museum.
It was a scandalous chronicle of fashionable life in the eighteenth century, and many brilliant names were implicated therein; distinguished and reputable families, that had long been honored in the history of England, were ruthlessly depicted with a black and venomous pen. He had coveted this book for years, and here it was within his grasp! He had just told the proprietor that he would take it.
Robert Hooker was a book-collector. With not a great deal of money, he had acquired a few of the world's most sought-after treasures. He had laboriously saved his pennies, and had, with the magic of the bibliophile, turned them into rare volumes! He was about to put the evil little book into his pocket when he was interrupted.
A large, portly man, known to book-lovers the world over, had entered the shop and asked Mr. Rodd if he might examine the Beau Brummel Memoirs. He had looked at it before, he said, but on that occasion had merely remarked that he would call again. He saw the volume on the table in front of Hooker, picked it up without ceremony, and told the owner of the shop that he would purchase it.
"Excuse me," exclaimed Hooker, "but I have just bought it."