A man of parts, Mr. Rudge was proud of an acquaintance which might almost be considered non-professional. When out of funds, Mr. Horrobin would sell Mr. Rudge a classic at a very little below its original cost, and when in funds would buy it back at a price somewhat less than that at which he had sold it. Mr. Rudge did not gain pecuniarily by the transaction, but in the course of the deal Mr. Horrobin would discourse so charmingly upon the classics in general that Mr. Rudge felt it was as good as a lecture at the Royal Institution. Although not a scholar himself in the academic sense, he had a ripe regard for those who were. In the mind of his bookseller, Mr. Horrobin stood for Culture with a very large letter.
Mr. Rudge was not in urgent need of an assistant. But he had felt lately that he would like one. He was getting old. It seemed a special act of grace that Mr. Horrobin should have sent him this young man.
Perhaps it was Mr. Rudge's reverence for Mr. Horrobin which committed him to a bold course. It was stretching a point, but Mr. Horrobin was Mr. Horrobin, and in the special circumstances it seemed the part of homage for pure intellect to do what he could for the bearer. Thus, after a few minutes' consideration of the matter, Henry Harper was engaged at a salary of twenty-five shillings a week to be in attendance at the shop from eight till seven, and eight till two Saturdays.
This was a stroke of real luck. A special providence had seemed to watch over the Sailor ever since he had left the Margaret Carey. The situation that had been offered was exactly the one he would have chosen. The mere sight of a shop crammed with treasures ancient and mysterious was like a glimpse of an enchanted land. The previous day he had bought a copy of the "Arabian Nights" for a shilling. Such facility had he now gained in reading that he had dipped into its pages with a sharp sense of delight. No. 249, Charing Cross Road, was a veritable Cave of the Forty Robbers.
These endless rows of shelves were magic casements opening on fairyland. The Sailor felt that the turning point of his life had come. A cosmos of new worlds was spread before him now. Moreover, it was his to enter and enjoy.
He had come, as it seemed, miraculously, upon a period of expansion and true growth. His duties in the shop were light. This was one of those quiet businesses that offer many intervals of leisure. Also Mr. Rudge, as became one with a regard for the things of the mind, gave his assistant a chance "to improve himself" in accordance with Mr. Horrobin's suggestion. Perhaps that happy and fortunate phrase had a great deal to do with the new prosperity. Mr. Rudge had been flattered by such a request coming from a man of such distinction; he felt he must live up to it by allowing Henry Harper to improve himself as much as possible.
The Sailor had entered Elysium. But he had the good sense to walk warily. He knew now that it was over-reading, the danger against which Ginger had solemnly warned him, that had brought about the Blackhampton catastrophe. He must always be on his guard, yet now the freedom was his of all these magic shelves, it was by no means easy to stick to that resolve.
Mr. Rudge dwelt at the back of the shop. Most of his time was passed in a small, dark, and stuffy sitting-room, where he ate his meals and applied himself to Culture at every reasonable opportunity. Now that he had an assistant, he was able to bestow more time than ever upon the things of the mind. He spent half his days and half his nights taking endless notes, in a meticulous hand, for a great work he had conceived forty-two years ago when he had migrated from Birmingham to the metropolis. This magnum opus was to be called "A History of the World," and was to consist of forty volumes, with a supplementary volume as an index, making forty-one in all. Each was to have four hundred and eighty pages, which were to be divided into twenty-four chapters. There were to be no illustrations.
Four decades had passed since the golden hour in which this scheme was born. In a spare room above the shop were a number of large tin trunks full of notes for the great work, all very carefully coded and docketed. These were the fruits of forty-two years' amazing industry. Every year these labors grew more comprehensive, more unceasing. But the odd thing was that only the first sentence of the first volume of the opus was yet in being. It ran, "'In the beginning,' says Holy Writ, 'was the Word.'" And even that pregnant sentence had yet to be put on paper. At present, it lay like the text of the History itself, in the head of the author.
With Henry Harper to mind the shop, the historian was able to devote more time to the work of his life. This was a fortunate matter, because Mr. Rudge was already within a few months of seventy, and forty volumes and an index had yet to be written. As a fact, considerable portions of the index were already in existence; and during Henry Harper's first week in the front shop it received a valuable accession in the form of "Bulrushes, Vol. IX., pp. 243-245. Moses in, Vol. III., p. 120." Careful and voluminous notes upon Bulrushes, based upon an unknown work that had lately arrived in a consignment of second-hand books from Sheffield, went to line the bottom of yet another large trunk which had been added recently to the attic above the shop.