It was not soothing to the imaginations of book-lovers when it became known that the two gems from Welford's library had gone into the rapacious hands of Doctor Morton, to be turned into an old mahogany sofa or a colonial high-boy.
It was criminal, and must be prevented at all costs. And Robert Hooker, smarting under the recollection of the loss of the "Anatomy" thought he would like to add wicked "Penn" and "Poor Richard" to his household. They would prove a considerable addition to his "museum of the imagination."
How to secure them was a problem! Ordinary methods could not be applied to the extraordinary Doctor Morton! The wisdom of the serpent was as nothing to the vivid intellectuality of the Connecticut Sage! It must be confessed that only New England could have produced him; only the rarified bookish atmosphere of three hundred years could have engendered a creature of such genius!
Hooker never despaired. A remedy was close at hand.
He was walking one day, on Thirty-ninth Street, and just off Broadway, he noticed a very handsome mahogany secretary in an antique store. He entered the establishment, and asked its price.
"A hundred dollars!" said the proprietor. "This piece is believed to have been once the property of Thomas Jefferson. I purchased it from one of his heirs."
"I'll take it," said Hooker simply.
Three weeks later Doctor Morton entered a little shop on Fourth Avenue. He had received a letter from the head partner, asking him to call the next time he came to New York, and inspect a piece of colonial furniture of the greatest historical interest.
The doctor was almost carried away when he beheld the beautiful relic of revolutionary days. This would grace his home with rare charm! He asked the price.
"Forty-five hundred dollars!"