Likely, the main reason no one had ever seen the inside of Nathanial's rooms was the fear within him that his evilness and obscenity might be discovered. For Nathanial Evergood might be called a connoisseur, to slightly distort the meaning of that word. He could be called a connoisseur of femininity—from afar, and in secret, of course. An arbiter of the well-turned thigh, the rounded, dimpled bottom, the tight waist, and the high, firm bosom.
Oh, Nathanial Evergood was a connoisseur, all right. At the investigation he ventured a very rough but conservative guess that he had collected at least fifty thousand pictures of girls, in whole or in part, horizontal or vertical, semi-nude or nude, over the years.
Upon entering his living room (if that were possible), the first thing a casual observer would have noted would be the point of saturation reached by his walls in their photographic content. There were photographs of blonds and brunettes and redheads. There were pictures of thin girls, fat girls, girls with ample bosoms and girls lacking, girls holding telephones, books and ice cream cones, girls sixteen, girls twenty-five, and girls no longer girls.
There were shots in glorious color by the hundreds, originals and prints alike. But, there wasn't among them one single view of the Grand Canyon. Nor even a solitary Indian astride a tired horse, looking pensively out over the prairie. There was a red-skinned maiden, mind you, but she wasn't sitting a horse, and she certainly wasn't staring laconically out over any prairie, either. Rather, she appeared to be testing with her toe the water temperature of a tree-shaded brook somewhere, and she was clad in a lone, strategically-located feather.
On the tea table, in the bookshelves, in the magazine rack, and all through his rooms, one might find other evidence of this evil and obscene old man's preoccupation with womankind. But the kind of woman he was preoccupied with often wasn't the kind that married dear old dad. He subscribed to every girlie publication in the country and to several in France.
So you see, Nathanial Evergood was not only a connoisseur, he was also an avid collector. There were books and there were magazines, and there was even a deck of playing cards backed with the most astounding set of pictures you ever saw. That anyone could sit down to a game of Old Maid or Snap with that deck of cards is inconceivable, to say the least. But such an evil and obscene old man as Nathanial Evergood likely never played games with his cards, anyway. He would much prefer to just sit and look at them; the reverse side, of course.
He later said he probably spent almost half his really quite meager earnings for up-to-date additions to his extensive collection. The girlie magazines, playing cards and prints he received from various mail order houses, sent, as the advertisements testified, "in a plain, unmarked envelope".
But the other half of his collection—the photographs, mounted, unmounted, matte and glossy enlargements and contact prints—Nathanial Evergood came by in an entirely different—and somewhat novel—manner. These resulted from his ability as a fairly advanced amateur photographer. Over the years, Nathanial had acquired three fine cameras, an excellent enlarger, two contact printers, electronic flash units, interchangeable lenses, filters, sun shades and lens caps, extension tubes and tripods. In short, Nathanial Evergood was well-equipped to take photographs of just about everything.
He had the equipment, and he had the necessary technical knowledge and facility. But, invariably, he passed up the usual pictorial, architectural, human interest, interpretive and abstract photographs, even when the opportunities for truly fine shots were there. Instead, he took roll after roll, pack after pack and cartridge upon cartridge of girls. Nothing but girls. All sorts of girls. Just girls!