“I don’t believe I told you,” replied Tom, “but I’m with Boise, Keen & Cutler. I have brought you some papers from them.”
“Oh, yes. I told them to send up the documents, but I had forgotten all about it. I have secured quite a rare book, an early edition of Smollett, and that drove everything else out of my mind. But come into my study.”
He led the way into a room, the walls of which were lined with row after row of books. Tom gave him the papers and delivered the message, then, in obedience with the instructions of Mr. Boise, the lad watched to see where Dr. Spidderkins would put the documents.
“I’ll lay them on this shelf,” the doctor said, “right under this volume of Fielding. Ah, that is a rare and valuable work. Then I’ll remember where the papers are. I picked up that book on Fielding the same day I got the first edition of Plutarch’s Lives—no, I’m wrong—it was the day I secured, in a second-hand book store, the complete edition of Dickens, with the original illustrations. Queer, how some things will slip out of my mind.”
“Do you think you’ll remember where the papers are now, doctor?” asked Tom.
“Oh, yes, indeed I will. I have occasion to look at the volume of Balzac every day, and——”
“But I thought you said you was going to put them under a book on baseball fielding.”
“Baseball fielding! Oh! Ha! Ha! I see. You thought I was going in for sport! No, no, my dear young friend; Fielding is the name of an early English novelist. But I did say Fielding, and not Balzac. There! My memory is getting more and more wretched every day!”
“I guess I don’t know much about books,” admitted Tom.
“Well, you’ll learn. I’m much obliged to you, for bringing the papers. There, I’ve put them under Mr. Fielding’s book—not the baseball fielding, remember, Tom—and they’ll be safe until I want them, and I shan’t forget where they are.”