But how? The book was constantly under guard in a guaranteed burglar-proof vault. To employ the most experienced crackmen to undertake the job would be almost insane. He could not try to substitute a facsimile as in the "Three Trees." To bribe the guard was foolhardy because the guard did not know the combination of the safety-lock. He was at his wit's end! Not a single practical idea entered his head. For once he was at the end of his resources!
Robert Hooker was a great lover of books. Like other kinds of love, the more he was denied, the greater the love grew; and time added fuel to the flames.
One evening in his library he was thinking what a pity it was that he could not see with his own eyes this evasive little book, when an idea flashed through his brain.
That night he did not sleep.
The following day Hooker paid a visit to an old building in lower New York. It was the United States Custom House. He asked to see an appraiser whom he had known from boyhood days, and he talked with him for an hour about the weather, the base-ball score and other absorbing questions.
"By the way, Girard, that was a nice purchase Fields made last month—I mean the Bacon volume. I suppose you saw it when it came through the Customs!"
"No, I don't remember it. That's curious."
"Well, at any rate, it was free of duty by age!"
"I know that, Hooker. But even so, everything worth over ten thousand dollars, I personally examine."
"Well, it doesn't make much difference. The book should come in without paying duty. Perhaps it came by another port."