Bibliokleptomaniacs

M. Jules Janin noentions a great Parisian bookseller wlio had an anriable weakness. He was a bibliokleptomaniac. Hisfirot notion when lie saw a book within reach was to put it in his pocket. Every one knew his habit, and when a volume was lost at a sale, the auctioneer duly announced it and knocked tt down to the enthusiast, who regularly paid the price. "When he went to a private view of books about to be sold, the officials at the door would ask him, as he was going out, if he did not happen to have an Elzevir Horace or an Aldine Ovid in iiis pocket. Then he would search those receptacles and exclaim, "Yes, yes, here it is; so much obliged to you ; I am se absent." M. Janin mentions an English noble, a "Sir Fitzgerald," who had the same tastes, but who unluckily feil into the hands of the pólice.