Soon afterwards, for me, the night began to grow fantastic; it took on
the colour of a gigantic adventure. I do not suppose that either Mr
Brindley or Mr Colclough, or the other person who presently arrived,
regarded it as anything but a pleasant conviviality, but to a man of my
constitution and habits it was an almost incredible occurrence. The
other person was the book-collecting doctor. He arrived with a discreet
tap on the window at midnight, to spend the evening. Mrs Brindley had
gone home and Mrs Colclough had gone to bed. The book-collecting doctor
refused champagne; he was, in fact, very rude to champagne in general.
He had whisky. And those astonishing individuals, Messieurs Brindley
and Colclough, secretly convinced of the justice of the attack on
champagne, had whisky too. And that still most astonishing individual,
Loring of the B.M., joined them. It was the hour of limericks.
Limericks were demanded for the diversion of the doctor, and I
furnished them. We then listened to the tale of the doctor's
experiences that day amid the sturdy, natural-minded population of a
muling village not far from Bursley. Seldom have I had such a bath in
the pure fluid of human nature. All sense of time was lost. I lived in
an eternity. I could not suggest to my host that we should depart. I
could, however, decline more whisky. And I could, given the chance,
discourse with gay despair concerning the miserable wreck that I should
be on the morrow in consequence of this high living. I asked them how I
could be expected, in such a state, to judge delicate points of
expertise in earthenware. I gave them a brief sketch of my customary
evening, and left them to compare it with that evening. The doctor
perceived that I was serious. He gazed at me with pity, as if to say:
'Poor frail southern organism! It ought to be in bed, with nothing
inside it but tea!' What he did actually say was: 'You come round to my
place, I'll soon put you right!' 'Can you stop me from having a
headache tomorrow?' I eagerly asked. 'I think so,' he said with calm
northern confidence.
At some later hour Mr Brindley and I 'went round'. Mr Colclough would
not come. He bade me good-bye, as his wife had done, with the most
extraordinary kindness, the most genuine sorrow at quitting me, the
most genuine pleasure in the hope of seeing me again.
'There are three thousand books in this room!' I said to myself, as I
stood in the doctor's electrically lit library.
'What price this for a dog?' Mr Brindley drew my attention to an
aristocratic fox-terrier that lay on the hearth. 'Well, Titus! Is it
sleepy? Well, well! How many firsts has he won, doctor?'
'Six,' said the doctor. 'I'll just fix you up, to begin with,' he
turned to me.
After I had been duly fixed up ('This'll help you to sleep, and THIS'll
placate your "god",' said the doctor), I saw to my intense surprise
that another 'evening' was to be instantly superimposed on the
'evening' at Mr Colclough's. The doctor and Mr Brindley carefully and
deliberately lighted long cigars, and sank deeply into immense
arm-chairs; and so I imitated them as well as I could in my feeble
southern way. We talked books. We just simply enumerated books without
end, praising or damning them, and arranged authors in neat pews, like
cattle in classes at an agricultural show. No pastime is more agreeable
to people who have the book disease, and none more quickly fleets the
hours, and none is more delightfully futile.