________________________________________________
_ For their after-luncheon coffee the party generally adjourned to
the library. Its windows looked east, and at this hour of the
day it was the coolest place in the whole house. It was a large
room, fitted, during the eighteenth century, with white painted
shelves of an elegant design. In the middle of one wall a door,
ingeniously upholstered with rows of dummy books, gave access to
a deep cupboard, where, among a pile of letter-files and old
newspapers, the mummy-case of an Egyptian lady, brought back by
the second Sir Ferdinando on his return from the Grand Tour,
mouldered in the darkness. From ten yards away and at a first
glance, one might almost have mistaken this secret door for a
section of shelving filled with genuine books. Coffee-cup in
hand, Mr. Scogan was standing in front of the dummy book-shelf.
Between the sips he discoursed.
"The bottom shelf," he was saying, "is taken up by an
Encyclopaedia in fourteen volumes. Useful, but a little dull, as
is also Caprimulge's 'Dictionary of the Finnish Language'. The
'Biographical Dictionary' looks more promising. 'Biography of
Men who were Born Great', 'Biography of Men who Achieved
Greatness', 'Biography of Men who had Greatness Thrust upon
Them', and 'Biography of Men who were Never Great at All'. Then
there are ten volumes of 'Thom's Works and Wanderings', while the
'Wild Goose Chase, a Novel', by an anonymous author, fills no
less than six. But what's this, what's this?" Mr. Scogan stood
on tiptoe and peered up. "Seven volumes of the 'Tales of
Knockespotch'. The 'Tales of Knockespotch'," he repeated. "Ah,
my dear Henry," he said, turning round, "these are your best
books. I would willingly give all the rest of your library for
them."
The happy possessor of a multitude of first editions, Mr. Wimbush
could afford to smile indulgently.
"Is it possible," Mr. Scogan went on, "that they possess nothing
more than a back and a title?" He opened the cupboard door and
peeped inside, as though he hoped to find the rest of the books
behind it. "Phooh!" he said, and shut the door again. "It
smells of dust and mildew. How symbolical! One comes to the
great masterpieces of the past, expecting some miraculous
illumination, and one finds, on opening them, only darkness and
dust and a faint smell of decay. After all, what is reading but
a vice, like drink or venery or any other form of excessive self-
indulgence? One reads to tickle and amuse one's mind; one reads,
above all, to prevent oneself thinking. Still--the 'Tales of
Knockespotch'..."
He paused, and thoughtfully drummed with his fingers on the backs
of the non-existent, unattainable books.
"But I disagree with you about reading," said Mary. "About
serious reading, I mean."
"Quite right, Mary, quite right," Mr. Scogan answered. "I had
forgotten there were any serious people in the room."
"I like the idea of the Biographies," said Denis. "There's room
for us all within the scheme; it's comprehensive."
"Yes, the Biographies are good, the Biographies are excellent,"
Mr Scogan agreed. "I imagine them written in a very elegant
Regency style--Brighton Pavilion in words--perhaps by the great
Dr. Lempriere himself. You know his classical dictionary? Ah!"
Mr. Scogan raised his hand and let it limply fall again in a
gesture which implied that words failed him. "Read his biography
of Helen; read how Jupiter, disguised as a swan, was 'enabled to
avail himself of his situation' vis-a-vis to Leda. And to think
that he may have, must have written these biographies of the
Great! What a work, Henry! And, owing to the idiotic
arrangement of your library, it can't be read."
"I prefer the 'Wild Goose Chase'," said Anne. "A novel in six
volumes--it must be restful."
"Restful," Mr. Scogan repeated. "You've hit on the right word.
A 'Wild Goose Chase' is sound, but a bit old-fashioned--pictures
of clerical life in the fifties, you know; specimens of the
landed gentry; peasants for pathos and comedy; and in the
background, always the picturesque beauties of nature soberly
described. All very good and solid, but, like certain puddings,
just a little dull. Personally, I like much better the notion of
'Thom's Works and Wanderings'. The eccentric Mr. Thom of Thom's
Hill. Old Tom Thom, as his intimates used to call him. He spent
ten years in Thibet organising the clarified butter industry on
modern European lines, and was able to retire at thirty-six with
a handsome fortune. The rest of his life he devoted to travel
and ratiocination; here is the result." Mr. Scogan tapped the
dummy books. "And now we come to the 'Tales of Knockespotch'.
What a masterpiece and what a great man! Knockespotch knew how
to write fiction. Ah, Denis, if you could only read Knockespotch
you wouldn't be writing a novel about the wearisome development
of a young man's character, you wouldn't be describing in
endless, fastidious detail, cultured life in Chelsea and
Bloomsbury and Hampstead. You would be trying to write a
readable book. But then, alas! owing to the peculiar arrangement
of our host's library, you never will read Knockespotch."
"Nobody could regret the fact more than I do," said Denis.
"It was Knockespotch," Mr. Scogan continued, "the great
Knockespotch, who delivered us from the dreary tyranny of the
realistic novel. My life, Knockespotch said, is not so long that
I can afford to spend precious hours writing or reading
descriptions of middle-class interiors. He said again, 'I am
tired of seeing the human mind bogged in a social plenum; I
prefer to paint it in a vacuum, freely and sportively
bombinating.'"
"I say," said Gombauld, "Knockespotch was a little obscure
sometimes, wasn't he?"
"He was," Mr. Scogan replied, "and with intention. It made him
seem even profounder than he actually was. But it was only in
his aphorisms that he was so dark and oracular. In his Tales he
was always luminous. Oh, those Tales--those Tales! How shall I
describe them? Fabulous characters shoot across his pages like
gaily dressed performers on the trapeze. There are extraordinary
adventures and still more extraordinary speculations.
Intelligences and emotions, relieved of all the imbecile
preoccupations of civilised life, move in intricate and subtle
dances, crossing and recrossing, advancing, retreating,
impinging. An immense erudition and an immense fancy go hand in
hand. All the ideas of the present and of the past, on every
possible subject, bob up among the Tales, smile gravely or
grimace a caricature of themselves, then disappear to make place
for something new. The verbal surface of his writing is rich and
fantastically diversified. The wit is incessant. The..."
"But couldn't you give us a specimen," Denis broke in--"a
concrete example?"
"Alas!" Mr. Scogan replied, "Knockespotch's great book is like
the sword Excalibur. It remains struck fast in this door,
awaiting the coming of a writer with genius enough to draw it
forth. I am not even a writer, I am not so much as qualified to
attempt the task. The extraction of Knockespotch from his wooden
prison I leave, my dear Denis, to you."
"Thank you," said Denis. _
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