unbutton my coat, smooth my hair, make a lot of noise blowing the dust off books then leaf through them ostentatiously or with exaggerated slowness, take notes in my diary, tap my foot in feigned impatience or doubt, cough, sigh, mutter and exclaim in Spanish and generally lend as much variety aspossible to the meagre spectacle I doubtless presented for those four eyes (two childlike and two perverse) observing me in my hunt for books.
Shortly after informing them of my interest in any book by Machen they might come across (although the truth is they never seemed to stray even a mile outside Oxford) and over a period of several days of forays into bookshops, I observed a man who seemed to be following almost in my footsteps. I saw him nosing around in Waterfield's vast antiquarian bookshop, in the mysterious upper floor of Sanders the engravings shop, in Swift's and in Titles, both in Turl Street, in the secondhand section of Blackwell's monumental and comprehensive emporium, on every one of Thornton's three floors, in out-of-the-way Artemis and even in the tiny Classic Bookshop that specialised in Greek and Latin texts. I consider myself to be a fairly observant person but it took no special talent to notice that particular man: he himself was fairly remarkable, but what most drew the eye was the dog he always had with him and that waited for him outside. It was a nice little mahogany-coloured terrier with an intelligent face but with one leg missing — its left back leg had been nearly amputated. That's why it always lay down while it waited, though it stood up as soon as it heard anyone leaving the shop at whose door it was tied, in the hope, I imagine, that it would be his bibliomaniac master. Since I usually arrived at the bookshops before the latter, I also left before him and each time the terrier would hop to its feet and reveal its small polished stump like an atrophied wing. I'd stroke its head and the dog would sit down again. I never heard the dog bark or growl even when it was raining or blustery outside; it never seemed disgruntled. Its owner, who was more or less my age, was still in possession of both his legs, but he complied with the old saying that owners always look like their dogs in that he was rather lame in one of them, his left. Although duringthose two or three days I never actually saw them together (the man inside the shop, the dog outside), the association was easy enough to make, their two recurring presences rendering it unequivocal. The man dressed in good albeit rather threadbare clothes, wore a hat as to the manner born and, judging by his complexion and hair colour, was Irish. Inevitably, though I'd paid him little attention, I had noticed him inside the bookshops, for even in the most extensive and labyrinthine of establishments I had at some point found myself perusing the same bookshelf as him, but we'd only exchanged the most fleeting of neutral, that is veiled, glances. At no point did it occur to me that he could have any connection with the path traced by my own random footsteps, still less that he might be following in them, although it did seem odd that I'd never before noticed such an immediately identifiable couple, not even whilst walking round the town, and yet now I met him often enough to find their maimed figures, his and the dog's, slightly and momentarily troubling, however little notice I took of them. Perhaps they were strangers passing through, a bookseller and his dog up from London on a recce to Oxford.
On the morning of one of those Sundays exiled from the infinite, I was working in my distinctly uncosy pyramid of a house and, as was my custom on that particular day of the week, kept looking up from time to time to gaze out of the window at the pleasant young gypsy flowerseller in her high boots, jeans and leather jacket, who on Sundays and bank holidays - come rain or snow - used to set up her stall on the pavement opposite. Sometimes, in the midst of my exile, I
Shortly after informing them of my interest in any book by Machen they might come across (although the truth is they never seemed to stray even a mile outside Oxford) and over a period of several days of forays into bookshops, I observed a man who seemed to be following almost in my footsteps. I saw him nosing around in Waterfield's vast antiquarian bookshop, in the mysterious upper floor of Sanders the engravings shop, in Swift's and in Titles, both in Turl Street, in the secondhand section of Blackwell's monumental and comprehensive emporium, on every one of Thornton's three floors, in out-of-the-way Artemis and even in the tiny Classic Bookshop that specialised in Greek and Latin texts. I consider myself to be a fairly observant person but it took no special talent to notice that particular man: he himself was fairly remarkable, but what most drew the eye was the dog he always had with him and that waited for him outside. It was a nice little mahogany-coloured terrier with an intelligent face but with one leg missing — its left back leg had been nearly amputated. That's why it always lay down while it waited, though it stood up as soon as it heard anyone leaving the shop at whose door it was tied, in the hope, I imagine, that it would be his bibliomaniac master. Since I usually arrived at the bookshops before the latter, I also left before him and each time the terrier would hop to its feet and reveal its small polished stump like an atrophied wing. I'd stroke its head and the dog would sit down again. I never heard the dog bark or growl even when it was raining or blustery outside; it never seemed disgruntled. Its owner, who was more or less my age, was still in possession of both his legs, but he complied with the old saying that owners always look like their dogs in that he was rather lame in one of them, his left. Although duringthose two or three days I never actually saw them together (the man inside the shop, the dog outside), the association was easy enough to make, their two recurring presences rendering it unequivocal. The man dressed in good albeit rather threadbare clothes, wore a hat as to the manner born and, judging by his complexion and hair colour, was Irish. Inevitably, though I'd paid him little attention, I had noticed him inside the bookshops, for even in the most extensive and labyrinthine of establishments I had at some point found myself perusing the same bookshelf as him, but we'd only exchanged the most fleeting of neutral, that is veiled, glances. At no point did it occur to me that he could have any connection with the path traced by my own random footsteps, still less that he might be following in them, although it did seem odd that I'd never before noticed such an immediately identifiable couple, not even whilst walking round the town, and yet now I met him often enough to find their maimed figures, his and the dog's, slightly and momentarily troubling, however little notice I took of them. Perhaps they were strangers passing through, a bookseller and his dog up from London on a recce to Oxford.
On the morning of one of those Sundays exiled from the infinite, I was working in my distinctly uncosy pyramid of a house and, as was my custom on that particular day of the week, kept looking up from time to time to gaze out of the window at the pleasant young gypsy flowerseller in her high boots, jeans and leather jacket, who on Sundays and bank holidays - come rain or snow - used to set up her stall on the pavement opposite. Sometimes, in the midst of my exile, I
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