“For generations none of us have cared about books—that must be why they have gone so to the bad!—the books, I mean,” he added with a laugh. “There was a bishop, and I think there was a poet, somewhere in the family; but my father—hm!—I doubt if he would care to lay out money on the library!”
“Tell him,” suggested Richard, “that it is a very valuable library—at least so it appears to me from the little I have seen of it; but I am sure of this, that it is rapidly sinking in value. After another twenty years of neglect it would not fetch half the price it might easily be brought up to now.”
“I don't know that that would weigh much with him. So long as he sees the shelves full, and the book-backs all right, he won't want anything better. He cares only how things look.”
“But the whole look of the library is growing worse—gradually, it is true, and in a measure it can't be helped—but faster than you would think, and faster than it ought. The backs, which, from a library point of view, are the faces of the books, may, up to a certain moment, look well, and after that go much more rapidly. I fear damp is getting at these from somewhere!”
“Would you undertake to set all right, if my father made you a reasonable offer?”
“I would—provided I found no injury beyond the scope of my experience.”
Richard spoke in book-fashion: he was speaking about books, and to a social superior! he was not really pompous.
“Well, if my father should come to see the thing as I do, I will let you know. Then will be the time for a definite understanding!”
“The best way would be that I should come and work for a set time: by the progress I made, and what I cost, you could judge.”
Lestrange rang the bell, and ordered the attendant to take the young man to his grandfather.