To make a long story as short as may be, I should say that Allen and I
had been acquainted when we were undergraduates; that, when fellows of
our respective colleges, our acquaintance had become intimate; that we
had once shared a little bit of fishing on the Test; and that we were
both book-collectors. I was a comparatively sane bibliomaniac, but to
Allen the time came when he grudged every penny that he did not spend on
rare books, and when he actually gave up his share of the water we used
to take together, that his contribution to the rent might go for rare
editions and bindings. After this deplorable change of character we
naturally saw each other less, but we were still friendly. I went up to
town to scribble; Allen stayed on at Oxford. One day I chanced to go
into Blocksby's rooms; it was a Friday, I remember--there was to be a
great sale on the Monday. There I met Allen in ecstasies over one of the
books displayed in the little side room on the right hand of the sale-
room. He had taken out of a glass case and was gloating over a book
which, it seems, had long been the Blue Rose of his fancy as a collector.
He was crazed about Longepierre, the old French amateur, whose volumes,
you may remember, were always bound in blue morocco, and tooled, on the
centre and at the corners, with his badge, the Golden Fleece.
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