The bookstores were an unceasing hobby to the old man. The
secondhand dealers never made any objection to his reading books
upon the shelves. His purchases were perhaps two books a week, at
ten or even five cents each. Now and again he would find one of his
own "Irving's Latin Prose Composition" texts in the five-cent pile.
Opening the book, he usually would discover strange pencilled
pictures drawn scrawlingly over many of the pages. His "Latin
Composition" wasn't published after 1882, the year the firm failed.
It might have been different for him, with a different publisher.
Late one afternoon in April, Professor Irving stood in his customary
niche at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street, watching the
traffic from a sheltered spot against the wall of the building. He
was becoming exceedingly anxious about the approaching storm. It had
come up since he left Stuyvesant Square, and he had no umbrella. He
must not get his silk hat wet. His thin overcoat was protecting him
but feebly from the wind, which with the disappearance of the sun
had grown sharp and biting. It was rapidly becoming dark. Lights
were flashing in the windows up and down the Avenue.
The Professor decided to stand in a doorway till the shower had
passed over.
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