"I beg your pardon," interrupted the traveller in gray. "Everything is much pleasanter and more picturesque in books than in reality--travelling especially. There are no bad smells in books. There are no long bills in books. Above all, there are no mosquitoes. Travelling is the greatest mistake in the world, and I am going home as fast as I can."
"And henceforth, I suppose, your travels will be confined to your library," I said, smiling.
"Exactly so. I may say, with Hazlitt, that 'food, warmth, sleep, and a book,' are all I require. With those I may make the tour of the world, and incur neither expense nor fatigue."
"Books, after all, are friends," I said, with a sigh.
"Sir," replied the traveller, waving his hand somewhat theatrically, "books are our first real friends, and our last. I have no others. I wish for no others. I rely upon no others. They are the only associates upon whom a sensible man may depend. They are always wise, and they are always witty. They never intrude upon us when we desire to be alone. They never speak ill of us behind our backs. They are never capricious, and never surly; neither are they, like some clever folks, pertinaciously silent when we most wish them to shine. Did Shakespeare ever refuse his best thoughts to us, or Montaigne decline to be companionable? Did you ever find Molière dull? or Lamb prosy? or Scott unentertaining?"
"You remind me," said I, laughing, "of the student in Chaucer, who desired for his only pleasure and society,
"'---at his bedde's head
A'twenty bokes clothed in black and red,
Of Aristotle and his philosophy!'"
"Ay," replied my new acquaintance, "but he preferred them expressly to 'robes riche, or fidel or sautrie,' whereas, I prefer them to men and women, and to Aristotle and his philosophy, into the bargain!"
"Your own philosophy, at least, is admirable," said I. "For many a year--I might almost say for most years of my life--I have been a disciple in the same school."
"Sir, you cannot belong to a better. Think of the convenience of always carrying half a dozen intimate friends in your pocket! Good-afternoon."