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A BOOKMAN'S ARMORY

Mr. Anthony Gooch, brother of the well-known librarian of East Caraway, owns one of the choicest private libraries it has ever been my good luck to see. I spent an evening with him recently and inspected his books. Mr. Anthony Gooch was highly amused at the account of his brother's literary zoÖlogical annex, which I wrote for the "Boston Transcript."

"Percival has tacked that barn on his library," he said, "and filled it with all those absurd animals—not one-half of which are genuine. Poor Percy! The dealers have pulled his leg unmercifully. And he spends all his evenings and holidays shoveling hay to those preposterous elephants, and wandering around in that menagerie—I'm afraid the old fellow is getting dotty. Why, what do you think he told me last week?"

I had not the least idea, and I said so.

"Why, he is negotiating with a London dealer for the oysters mentioned in 'The Walrus and the Carpenter'! You remember them, of course?"

And Mr. Gooch, leaning back in his chair and waving the stem of his long pipe in time with the beat of Lewis Carroll's exquisite verses, repeated:

"'But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:

Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat—

And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn't any feet.

"'Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four,—'

"I told him that he was being cheated, for the poem distinctly states (see stanza 18, lines 5 and 6) that the Walrus and the Carpenter ate all the oysters. But he replied that perhaps these were some of the Elder Oysters, for in the poem it says:

"'The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said:

The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head—

Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.'"

"It is useless to argue with him," continued Mr. Anthony Gooch, "and if his trustees will let him spend the money, I suppose I ought not mind. Still I do hate to think of the name of Gooch being connected with a fraudulent collection."

I agreed that it was distressing, and remarked that I thought it curious that one brother should be a collector and the other have no interest in that kind of hobby. For Anthony Gooch's library is remarkably free from all items that appeal merely to the bibliomaniac. His books are beautiful, but they are to be read, and Mr. Gooch has read them. He owns no unopened copies, nor any such nonsense. My host smiled.

"Well, of course I do not go in for fakes, and I certainly do not care to act as keeper to a lot of crocodiles, and flounders, and jackdaws, and other livestock, as Percival does. Still, my little museum—you have never seen it? Come this way."

Mr. Gooch led me to a door at the right of the fireplace, between two bookcases. He opened the door, turned on the lights, and we entered a small room. I exclaimed with astonishment, for we stood in an arsenal—or, rather, an armory.

The walls were lined with weapons. Stands of arms were in the corners, and a number of flags and banners hung from the ceiling. The weapons were of every variety and period. Old spears and battleaxes, stone hatchets, bows and sheaves of arrows—these were mingled with modern rifles, automatic pistols, and bowie knives. Daggers of a dozen patterns hung on the walls or lay on the tables. One or two ancient pieces of artillery—culverins and drakes, I fancy—were in a corner, together with a quick-firing gun from some modern man-of-war.

"These," said Mr. Gooch, looking me in the eye, very seriously, "are absolutely genuine—every one of them. And not one but has figured in some scene in literature. I have spent fifteen years in assembling this collection, and—well, I prize it highly. That is one of the reasons why it disgusts me to have my brother Percival waste his time over that ridiculous aggregation of animals, so many of which are sheer frauds. It tends to bring my collection of weapons under suspicion, and I do not need to say that I cannot bear to have anyone doubt the absolute authenticity of my treasures. If you feel any doubt about them I wish you would say so now, and we will go back to the library."

But I told Mr. Gooch that suspicion was a trait foreign to my nature.

"Long ago," I said, "I took the advice of the White Queen in 'Through the Looking-Glass,' and practised believing impossible things for half an hour every day. Like her, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

"Then I have no hesitation in showing you my collection," remarked Mr. Gooch. "Look at this sword—it is the envenomed rapier of Laertes, dipped in an unction which he bought of a mountebank. Be careful not to touch the point—I think some of the poison lingers on it now, and it has already been responsible for two—no, three deaths. You remember that Hamlet used it to kill the king, after it had wounded both him and Laertes in the fencing bout."

I put down the rapier gingerly, and inquired about a flint-lock pistol which lay on the table near at hand. Mr. Gooch told me that it was the weapon owned by Madame Defarge, through which she came to her death.

"And what was probably worse, from her point of view," added the collector, "she was thus unavoidably detained from her front seat at the guillotine, on that day of days, when she hoped to see the Marquis of Evremond lose his life. Someone has said that the whole French Revolution seemed to have been brought about so Madame Defarge might have her revenge—so, of course, the blow was a severe one to her. This pistol exploded while she was struggling with Miss Pross in the empty house, and the explosion killed her and deafened Miss Pross. Even then the tumbril was carrying Sydney Carton to the guillotine."

"Your relics are rather gruesome," I observed.

"I pride myself that there are more horrors comprised in this small room than in most of its size," said Mr. Gooch. "But they are not all connected with tragedies. Here, for instance, is the mace which the White Knight used in his battle with the Red Knight, and I have also—up there on the wall—his sword—made of a lath, you see. Still, weapons are naturally instruments of crime, or, at any rate, of violence, and some very notorious murders are commemorated here."

He picked up a long, blood-stained knife.

"With this," he said, "Markheim killed the shopkeeper. One of the very finest murders in literature, in my opinion. You recall the circumstances: Christmas Day, the two men alone in the shop—"

"I do indeed," I replied, willing to show my familiarity with Stevenson's wonderful tale, "and I remember the terrible moments that followed—the murderer alone with the dead man, the silence, the ticking of the clocks, the man who knocked on the outside door, and all the rest of it."

Mr. Gooch replaced the knife and drew my attention to a shield and a long spear which hung on the wall. These, he said, belonged to a "Fuzzy-Wuzzy"—they were a "coffin-'eaded shield an' shovel-spear," the implements for a 'appy day with Fuzzy on the rush. Near them hung an old flint-lock musket. It was a perfect wreck—the stock worm-eaten, and the lock and barrel covered with rust.

"It was never used to kill anything more dangerous than a squirrel or a wild goose," said my host; "yet its original owner was nearly arrested for carrying it on one occasion. Surely you can guess who that owner was."

I guessed Rip Van Winkle, and Mr. Gooch said that was correct.

"It doesn't improve a musket or a man to lie out on the mountains day and night for twenty years," he added.

Then he showed me Othello's sword of Spain, "of the ice-brook's temper," with which the Moor smote himself, as once in Aleppo he smote a malignant and a turban'd Turk.

"This box," said Mr. Gooch, "contains one of my greatest prizes—nothing less than the dagger which led Macbeth to Duncan's sleeping chamber—"

"But it was an 'air-drawn dagger'—it was imaginary," I began.

And then the old story about the man and his mongoose recurred to me, and I stopped. I looked in the box, and, of course, found it empty. The collector of weapons laughed and seemed greatly delighted with his little joke. I judged that he was accustomed to play it on every visitor.

"What is this bottle? It seems out of place here."

"Not at all," replied Mr. Gooch; "it is Falstaff's pocket pistol. This cane once belonged to Mr. Wackford Squeers, but it was used on only one occasion, and then against the owner himself, by Nicholas Nickleby."

He then showed me a sword broken near the hilt.

"It was Henry Esmond's. He broke it when he denied the Prince, and heaped reproaches upon him for going dangling after Beatrix, when the opportunity of his life was at hand. Little the Prince cared! He deigned, a few moments later, to cross swords with Esmond, and Frank used this broken blade to strike up their weapons. It was such a condescension! Esmond knew the Prince to be worthless, and he had just been insulting him in every way he could think. But he was of the sacred blood of the Stuarts—enough for any Jacobite. You will find a full account of it in the novel, if you care to refresh your memory. This is a cigar-cutter's knife—a curious weapon, isn't it? Carmen used it to slash the face of the woman she quarreled with—she cut a neat St. Andrew's cross on her enemy's cheek. That led to her subsequent arrest by Don JosÉ, the escape at which he connived, and all the train of events which followed. This is the knife that Don JosÉ killed Carmen with."

"How did you get all these weapons?" I asked him.

"Oh, in various ways. It requires a great deal of patience, some money, and some imagination. I traveled for three or four years, but since then I have had to employ agents. Some authors would almost fill this room by themselves, if I cared to collect all the weapons for which they are responsible. See all those spears and broadswords—that is my Sir Thomas Malory corner. Walter Scott covered almost that entire wall—spears, claymores, daggers, battleaxes and pistols. I could not get the sword of Saladin—that, like some other valuable pieces, is owned by a Virtuoso, of whom you may have heard. This sword was used by Rudolf Rassendyll—he employed it in freeing the prisoner of Zenda. A revolver would have been quicker, probably, but not half so picturesque. I was glad to get that sword, but I soon had to stop buying the mass of cutlery that came into the market shortly after it was forged. I could have filled my house with it. Poor weapons they were, mostly. See those rapiers over the fireplace—they are of the finest temper, and came from Alexandre Dumas. The one on the left, of somewhat the same shape, was used by A Gentleman of France. That spear was carried by the squire of Sir Nigel Loring when he rode into Spain at the head of the White Company. There is the good broadsword of young Lochinvar, and this is the sword with which Horatius held the bridge in the brave days of old."

"The one with which he killed the Lord of Luna?'

"Precisely. How does it go?"

"'Through teeth, and skull, and helmet,
So fierce a thrust he sped

The good sword stood a handbreadth out
Behind the Tuscan's head.'

"No one does anything like that now. Those were the days!"

"They were, certainly. The two swords next to Horatius's—who owned them?"

"Lord Barnard and Little Musgrave. You know the old ballad?"

And Mr. Gooch quoted again:

"'The first stroke little Musgrave struck,
He hurt Lord Barnard sore;

The next stroke that Lord Barnard struck,
Little Musgrave never struck more.'"

Then the collector showed me a rifle of modern pattern.

"The regular rifle of the British army twenty years ago. This belonged to Private Stanley Ortheris. He took it with him that day he went out to look for a native deserter who was making things unpleasant by night for the old regiment. Ortheris had his two companions with him, and while they waited Learoyd told the story 'On Greenhow Hill.' At its end, the deserter appeared and Ortheris ended his career at long range. 'Mayhap there was a lass tewed up wi' him, too,' opined Learoyd."

I nodded, for I liked the story well.

"Here is the pistol," said Mr. Gooch, "that was found by the side of Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, who struck a streak of bad luck on the 23d of November, 1850, and handed in his checks on the 7th of December, 1850."

Then I asked about a hammer that lay among other objects on the table.

"It is not a weapon, exactly," admitted Mr. Gooch, "but it belonged to Adam Bede. He used it in making a coffin, the night his father was drowned. The musket is the one with which Carver Doone shot Lorna in the church. That peculiar machine in the corner? It doesn't look earthly, does it? As a matter of fact, it is a heat ray apparatus which was employed by the Martians in the War of the Worlds."

We moved around the room slowly, Mr. Gooch sometimes pointing to weapons which hung high above our heads, and sometimes taking them down so I could examine them closely. In this more satisfactory fashion he now showed me a remarkable axe. The haft was of rhinoceros horn, wound with copper wire. This handle was over a yard long. The head was of steel. As I had suspected, the axe had belonged to Umslopogaas, the Zulu warrior. With this axe he had terrorized the French cook Alphonse, and with it he fought his great fight at the head of the stairway. It had numerous nicks in the horn handle—each nick representing a man killed with it in battle.

"Here is another knife which figured in a murder," said Mr. Gooch. "Tess killed Alec D'Urberville with it. And this is the unsheathed sword that lay between Tristram and Iseult."

On a shelf in a corner was a piece of some red stone. I inquired about it, remarking that it did not seem to belong to the collection,

"No, it does not," Mr. Gooch agreed, "but it served very effectively on a certain occasion. That was the meeting of the scientific society on the Stanislow. If I can quote correctly, the incident is described as follows:

"'Then Peleg Jones of Angels raised a point of order, when

A chunk of old red sandstone took him in the abdomen—

And he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and curled up on the floor,

And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.'

"I remember now," said I, "it was the beginning of a serious battle."

"Yes; events followed fast and furious—

"'In less time than it takes to tell it, every member did engage

In a battle with those remnants of a paleozoic age,

And the way they hurled those fossils in their anger was a sin—

Till the skull of an old mammoth caved the head of Thompson in.'"

Mr. Gooch then showed me Bob Acres' dueling pistols. They gave no signs of having been used, and it is doubtful if they would have been very deadly at forty paces—Bob's favorite fighting distance. Here was also the cross-bow, with which the Ancient Mariner killed the albatross. I found, hanging from a hook, two curious weapons which resembled light darts, or spears. My host reached them down for me, and I looked them over closely. Their composition was apparent—the halves of a pair of scissors had been tied to two wands.

"They look much more harmless than Bob Acres' pistols, do they not? As a matter of fact, they were used in a duel, and one of them killed its man. The duel was fought in Edinburgh Castle between two French prisoners,—one of whom was St. Ives."

"And the lasso that hangs above them?"

"Employed in a tournament by a Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court,—until Merlin stole it. This is the sword with which Sergeant Troy displayed his dexterity before Bathsheba Everdene. And this blade you have heard celebrated in song a good many times—it is the Sword of Bunker Hill. And with this Miles Standish stirred the posset. Here is the revolver with which Sherlock Holmes used to amuse himself in his room on Baker street—sitting in his chair, and making a patriotic 'V. R.' in bullet pocks on the wall, much to the annoyance of the good Dr. Watson. These daggers are rather odd—four of them, and two swords, you see. They came from 'The Critic' where the two Nieces draw their two daggers to strike Whiskerandos, the two Uncles point their swords at Whiskerandos, and he draws two daggers and holds them to the two Nieces' bosoms. So they would have stood forever, if the Beefeater hadn't come in and commanded them, in the queen's name, to drop their weapons. There's the Beefeater's halberd, too. Doubtless you've wondered at this naval gun. It fired the shot that did the business for the 'Haliotis,' and gave Kipling a chance to air his knowledge of engines and machinery in general. You can read about it in 'The Devil and the Deep Sea' This sword is in its sheath, you see,

'His sword was in its sheath,
His fingers held the pen,

When Kempenfelt went down
With twice four hundred men.'

"I've plenty of swords—here's the one that pierced the Master of Ballantrae, when he and his brother fought together by candle-light. This pretty little pair of scissors? They helped in the Rape of the Lock. This stone-headed club is my oldest specimen—it belonged to Ab—you know his story, no doubt? And the big axe was carried by the Executioner when the Queen of Hearts went about shouting, 'Off with their heads!'"

"That is a beautiful dagger," I remarked.

"Isn't it? It was brought by some Italian twins to a village in Missouri, where it had an exciting history. Look at the finger prints in blood on the handle. They betrayed a murderer, and he was denounced in court by Pudd'nhead Wilson."

We had finished our circuit of the room, and it was time for me to bid Mr. Gooch good-night. I started to thank him for showing me his collection, but he interrupted.

"Oh, that's all right; but," he added, laying his hand on my shoulder in a paternal fashion, "one last request: if you write it up for the 'Transcript,' don't try to be funny! I do hate to have books, and libraries, and literature treated flippantly. Now, I read your column—oh! very often—"

"No!"

"Yes, I do," he persisted, "I really do! After I have finished the Genealogical Department, of course, and all those other fellows—The Bee-Keeper, and The Bishop Afloat, and all the rest of 'em, I read The Librarian frequently."

I blushed slightly.

"And I wish," continued my host, "that you would treat my collection seriously."

"Mr. Gooch," I promised, "I will be as solemn as—as—oh, as your brother's annual reports. I can say no more than that."

And we shook hands on it.