But the culmination of all was the library. It was a marvel in its way. Horace Walpole somewhere speaks of one that contained only a broken chair, a chart, and a lame telescope. But this was an enchanting bower for the muses compared to a room full of lame and impotent compilations in 'books' clothing.' Thinglets fit only to wrap candles in, or make winding-sheets in Lent for pilchards, or keep butter in the market-place from melting. There were rows upon rows of such stuff as the Rev. Ebenezer Slipslop on Corinthians; awful Encyclopedias and Treasuries of Knowledge, and biographies of self-made men who, to the prime sin of having existed at all, added the no less unpardonable one of swelling the dreariest form of fiction. So many and so many and such woe. In proportion to the keen pleasure we associate with real books is the gloom which the bare sight of such biblia-a-biblia can induce. The tradition ran that Sir Edward had ordered 'a ton of books' from a third-rate bookseller in distress, and that this enterprising tradesman had bought up and bound for the Godolphin House library an astounding collection of the young men's mutual improvement type of rubbish. There was probably not a fact in the known world of the callow sort one hears only to forget which did not repose on these shelves.
Even in venturing out in the grounds at Godolphin House, everything still breathed of money recklessly lavished by hirelings. One was constantly taken to gaze at some double or triple monstrosity, perpetrated by gardeners who were so highly paid that it would compromise them to let Nature have much of her own way.
When Ted returned to his father's house that night, he found Mrs. Tareling—Larry as he usually called her—in a bitterly discontented frame of mind.
'Who do you think has come to stay for two weeks, Ted?' she cried, the moment she caught sight of him.
'Tareling?' questioned Ted carelessly, taking possession of one armchair and resting his feet on another.
'Oh, you know very well he wouldn't come to stay so long, especially at Christmas-time. It is Uncle John!'
'Well, I'm glad the old chap came while I'm here. It's ages since I saw him. Did he bring aunt along with him?'
'Upon my word, Ted, you are horribly provoking sometimes. You take it as coolly as if he were the most agreeable company in the world.'
'Well, one's relations aren't often that; but still, there they are, you know, and there they were, before we showed our noses in the world. Has the old man gone to bed?'
'Yes, long ago. That's his way. He'll go to bed when the hens do, that he may rise at daybreak, to go creaking all over the house and burst into guffaws of laughter at the decorations and things, and tell abominable stories before the servants.'