not that my argument will be sustained by that authority.''
It was vastly easier, however, to cite Hillier than it was to

find him. For three days I searched in my library, and tumbled
my books about in that confusion which results from undue

eagerness; 't was all in vain; neither hide nor hair of the
desired volume could I discover. It finally occurred to me that

I must have lent the book to somebody, and then again I felt sure
that it had been stolen.

No tidings of the missingvolume came to me, and I had almost
forgotten the incident when one evening (it was fully two years

after my discussion with my cronies) I came upon, in one of the
drawers of my oak chest, a Sotheran catalogue of May, 1871. By

the merest chance I opened it, and as luck would have it, I
opened it at the very page upon which appeared this item:

``Hillier (G.) `Narrative of the Attempted Escapes of Charles the
First from Carisbrooke Castle'; cr. 8vo, 1852, cloth, 3/6.''

Against this item appeared a cross in my chirography, and I saw
at a glance that this was my long-lost Hillier! I had meant to

buy it, and had marked it for purchase; but with the
determination and that pencilled cross the transaction had ended.

Yet, having resolved to buy it had served me almost as
effectively as though I had actually bought it; I thought--aye, I

could have sworn-- I HAD bought it, simply because I MEANT to buy
it.

``The experience is not unique,'' said Judge Methuen, when I
narrated it to him at our next meeting. ``Speaking for myself, I

can say that it is a confirmed habit with me to mark certain
items in catalogues which I read, and then to go my way in the

pleasing conviction that they are actually mine.''
``I meet with cases of this character continually,'' said Dr.

O'Rell. ``The hallucination is one that is recognized as a
specific one by pathologists; its cure is quickest effected by

means of hypnotism. Within the last year a lady of beauty and
refinement came to me in serious distress. She confided to me

amid a copious effusion of tears that her husband was upon the
verge of insanity. Her testimony was to the effect that the

unfortunate man believed himself to be possessed of a large
library, the fact being that the number of his books was limited

to three hundred or thereabouts.
``Upon inquiry I learned that N. M. (for so I will call the

victim of this delusion) made a practice of reading and of
marking booksellers' catalogues; further investigation developed

that N. M.'s great-uncle on his mother's side had invented a
flying-machine that would not fly, and that a half-brother of

his was the author of a pamphlet entitled `16 to 1; or the Poor
Man's Vade-Mecum.'

`` `Madam,' said I, `it is clear to me that your husband is
afflicted with catalogitis.'

``At this the poor woman went into hysterics, bewailing that she
should have lived to see the object of her affection the victim

of a malady so grievous as to require a Greek name. When she
became calmer I explained to her that the malady was by no means

fatal, and that it yielded readily to treatment.''
``What, in plain terms,'' asked Judge Methuen, ``is

catalogitis?''
``I will explain briefly,'' answered the doctor. ``You must know

first that every perfect human being is provided with two sets of
bowels; he has physical bowels and intellectual bowels, the brain

being the latter. Hippocrates (since whose time the science of
medicine has not advanced even the two stadia, five parasangs of

Xenophon)-- Hippocrates, I say, discovered that the brain is
subject to those very same diseases to which the other and

inferior bowels are liable.
``Galen confirmed this discovery and he records a case (Lib. xi.,

p. 318) wherein there were exhibited in the intellectual bowels
symptoms similar to those we find in appendicitis. The brain is

wrought into certain convolutions, just as the alimentary canal
is; the fourth layer, so called, contains elongated groups of

small cells or nuclei, radiating at right angles to its plane,
which groups present a distinctly fanlike structure. Catalogitis

is a stoppage of this fourth layer, whereby the functions of the
fanlike structure are suffered no longer to cool the brain, and

whereby also continuity of thought is interrupted, just as
continuity of digestion is prevented by stoppage of the vermiform

appendix.
``The learned Professor Biersteintrinken,'' continued Dr. O'Rell,

``has advanced in his scholarly work on `Raderinderkopf' the
interesting theory that catalogitis is produced by the presence

in the brain of a germ which has its origin in the cheap paper
used by booksellers for catalogue purposes, and this theory seems

to have the approval of M. Marie-Tonsard, the most famous of
authorities on inebriety, in his celebratedclassic entitled `Un

Trait sur Jacques-Jacques.' ''
``Did you effect a cure in the case of N. M.?'' I asked.

``With the greatest of ease,'' answered the doctor. ``By means
of hypnotism I purged his intellectuals of their hallucination,

relieving them of their perception of objects which have no
reality and ridding them of sensations which have no

corresponding external cause. The patient made a rapid recovery,
and, although three months have elapsed since his discharge, he

has had no return of the disease.''
As a class booksellers do not encourage the reading of other

booksellers' catalogues; this is, presumably, because they do not
care to encourage buyers to buy of other sellers. My bookseller,

who in all virtues of head and heart excels all other booksellers
I ever met with, makes a scrupulous practice of destroying the

catalogues that come to his shop, lest some stray copy may fall
into the hands of a mousing book-lover and divert his attention

to other hunting-grounds. It is indeed remarkable to what excess
the catalogue habit will carry its victim; the author of ``Will

Shakespeare, a Comedy,'' has frequently confessed to me that it
mattered not to him whether a catalogue was twenty years old--so

long as it was a catalogue of books he found the keenest delight
in its perusal; I have often heard Mr. Hamlin, the theatre

manager, say that he preferred old catalogues to new, for the
reason that the bargains to be met with in old catalogues expired

long ago under the statute of limitations.
Judge Methuen, who is a married man and has therefore had an

excellent opportunity to study the sex, tells me that the wives
of bibliomaniacs regard catalogues as the most mischievous

temptations that can be thrown in the way of their husbands. I
once committed the imprudence of mentioning the subject in Mrs.

Methuen's presence: that estimable lady gave it as her opinion
that there were plenty of ways of spending money foolishly

without having recourse to a book-catalogue for suggestion. I
wonder whether Captivity would have had this opinion, had

Providence ordained that we should walk together the quiet
pathway of New England life; would Yseult always have retained

the exuberance and sweetness of her youth, had she and I realized
what might have been? Would Fanchonette always have sympathized

with the whims and vagaries of the restless yet loyal soul that
hung enraptured on her singing in the Quartier Latin so long ago

that the memory of that song is like the memory of a ghostly echo
now?

Away with such reflections! Bring in the candles, good servitor,
and range them at my bed's head; sweet avocation awaits me, for

here I have a goodlyparcel of catalogues with which to commune.
They are messages from Methuen, Sotheran, Libbie, Irvine, Hutt,

Davey, Baer, Crawford, Bangs, McClurg, Matthews, Francis, Bouton,
Scribner, Benjamin, and a score of other friends in every part of

Christendom; they deserve and they shall have my respectful--nay,