Page 13 Advertisements Column 2

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20098, 29 November 1930, Page 13

a tolio from its heap, a 'love would make a sudden s«oop, and skate wildly on one's hat, which would presently *kip off into a corner carrying t'ne h."s:e.iical bird upon its rim. Despite the doves and the dirt, many a precious item liave I excavated in the ga. reta at lietl Lion Square. * There are no such treasure-heaps leit unsearchcd to-day in the sophisticated shop# of Soho. Half a crown was long the limit ot Gosse's outlay on a single purchase, liven after he had raised nis limit, his slender means n.nde him miserable; but lie was consoled by the pleasure that a collector wins out of poverty. Many years ago there was to be sold a little eighteenth-century treasure which I had long desired, and it seemed soin» at » quiet auction But, alas I the Exxl of Hxxxxxxy had heard of it. and I fel beTore him, like u reed, at my' first bid. I try to support the blows of life with fortitude, but I confess that on this occasion 1 drooled a tear on the fhoulder of th» m'-at judicious of bibl:o|.>o!es, now long departed. "He pets everything,'" 1 moaned: ''he was Horn to get wverythin"." "No." repl ; rd Mr 8.. "not evervtMrg He ha* not, and never will have, the rxc.uisite pleasure of buying what he knows he cannot afford." Perhaps that does not sanction the booklover's yielding to temptation. Yet how can he help forgiving himself (or abstain from the luxury of blaming himseli) for a sin so rewarded? —J.H.E.S.