Theres Pippins and Cheese to Come | Page 7

Be these things as they
may, leather bindings in sets of "grenadier uniformity" ornament the
upper and lighter rooms. Biography straggles down a hallway, with a
candle needed at the farther end. A room of dingy plays--Wycherley,
Congreve and their crew--looks out through an area grating. It was
through even so foul an eye, that when alive, they looked upon the
world. As for theology, except for the before-mentioned Fathers, it sits
in general and dusty convention on the landing to the basement, its
snuffy sermons, by a sad misplacement--or is there an ironical
intention?--pointing the way to the eternal abyss below.
It was in this shop that I inquired whether there was published a book
on piracy in Cornwall. Now, I had lately come from Tintagel on the
Cornish coast, and as I had climbed upon the rocks and looked down
upon the sea, I had wondered to myself whether, if the knowledge were
put out before me, I could compose a story of Spanish treasure and
pirates. For I am a prey to such giddy ambition. A foul street--if the
buildings slant and topple--will set me thinking delightfully of murders.
A wharf-end with water lapping underneath and bits of rope about will
set me itching for a deep-sea plot. Or if I go on broader range and see in
my fancy a broken castle on a hill, I'll clear its moat and sound
trumpets on its walls. If there is pepper in my mood, I'll storm its
dungeon. Or in a softer moment I'll trim its unsubstantial towers with
pageantry and rest upon my elbow until I fall asleep. So being cast
upon the rugged Cornish coast whose cliffs are so swept with winter
winds that the villages sit for comfort in the hollows, it was to be

expected that my thoughts would run toward pirates.
There is one rock especially which I had climbed in the rain and fog of
early morning. A reckless path goes across its face with a sharp pitch to
the ocean. It was so slippery and the wind so tugged and pulled to
throw me off, that although I endangered my dignity, I played the
quadruped on the narrower parts. But once on top in the open blast of
the storm and safe upon the level, I thumped with desire for a plot. In
each inlet from the ocean I saw a pirate lugger--such is the pleasing
word--with a keg of rum set up. Each cranny led to a cavern with
doubloons piled inside. The very tempest in my ears was compounded
out of ships at sea and wreck and pillage. I needed but a plot, a thread
of action to string my villains on. If this were once contrived, I would
spice my text with sailors' oaths and such boasting talk as might lie in
my invention. Could I but come upon a plot, I might yet proclaim
myself an author.
With this guilty secret in me I blushed as I asked the question. It
seemed sure that the shopkeeper must guess my purpose. I felt myself
suspected as though I were a rascal buying pistols to commit a murder.
Indeed, I seem to remember having read that even hardened criminals
have become confused before a shopkeeper and betrayed themselves.
Of course, Dick Turpin and Jerry Abershaw could call for pistols in the
same easy tone they ordered ale, but it would take a practiced villainy.
But I in my innocence wanted nothing but the meager outline of a
pirate's life, which I might fatten to my uses.
But on a less occasion, when there is no plot thumping in me, I still feel
a kind of embarrassment when I ask for a book out of the general
demand. I feel so like an odd stick. This embarrassment applies not to
the request for other commodities. I will order a collar that is quite
outside the fashion, in a high-pitched voice so that the whole shop can
hear. I could bargain for a purple waistcoat--did my taste run so--and
though the sidewalk listened, it would not draw a blush. I have traded
even for women's garments--though this did strain me--without an
outward twitch. Finally, to top my valor, I have bought sheet music of
the lighter kind and have pronounced the softest titles so that all could

hear. But if I desire the poems of Lovelace or the plays of Marlowe, I
sidle close up to the shopkeeper to get his very ear. If the book is
visible, I point my thumb at it without a word.
It was but the other day--in order to fill a gap in a paper I was writing--I
desired to know the name of an author who is obscure although his
work has been translated into nearly