we all sipped the hot stuff out of porcelain cups and chatted away as if the world had grown younger. [Pg 92] Mr. Davies was full of curiosity about our departure and the Captain’s purpose, and did not weary of putting questions to us, or rather to Lancelot, for he soon found that I knew but little of our business beyond the name of the ship. To be sure, I do not think that Lancelot really knew much more about it than I did, but he could talk as I never could talk, and he made it all seem mighty grand and venturesome and heroic to the little bookseller. When we rose Mr. Davies rose with us and followed us into the shop, when he insisted that each of us should have a book for a keepsake. He groped along his shelves, and after a little while turned to us with a couple of volumes under his arm. [Pg 93] [Pg 93] Mr. Davies addressed Lancelot very gravely as he handed him one of the volumes. ‘Master Lancelot,’ he said, ‘in giving you that book I bestow upon you what is worth more than a king’s ransom—yea, more than gold of Ophir and peacocks and ivory from Tarshish, and pearls of Tyre and purple of Sidon. It is John Florio’s rendering of the Essays of Michael of Montaigne, and there is no better book in the world, of the books that men have made for men, the books that have no breath of the speech of angels in them. Here may a man learn to be brave, equable, temperate, patient, to look life—aye, and the end of life—squarely in the face, to make the most and best of his earthly portion. Take it, Master Lancelot; it is the good book of a good and wise gentleman, and in days long off, when I am no more, you may remember my name because of this my gift and be grateful.’ Then he turned to me and handed me the other book that he had been hugging under his arm. ‘For you, my dear young friend,’ he said, ‘I have chosen a work of another temper. You have no bookish habit, but you have a gallant spirit, and so I will give you a gallant book.’ He opened the volume, which was a quarto, and [Pg 94]read from its title-page in his thin, piping voice, that always reminded me somewhat of his own old bullfinch. [Pg 94] ‘A New, Short, and Easy Method of Fencing; or, the Art of the Broad and Small Sword, Rectified
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