Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/205

 not blame any bookworm for crowing with a shrill cry of exultation if he were hatched in that treasury. There was not time to find out whether John Blaeu's atlas contained plates of American geography, but I hope to go again and study these fascinating volumes more at leisure, by Mr. Hedley's kindness.

Perhaps the most curious feature of the Mercantile is the huge vaulted cellar which underlies the length of the whole building. Constructed originally for storage of market produce, before the days of modern refrigeration, it is now a dark and mysterious crypt extending under the adjoining streets, where the rumble of wheels sound overhead. The library's stamping press, used to incise the covers of books, gives one of the chambers a medieval monkish air, and the equally medieval spelling of the janitor in some memoranda of his own posted upon a door do not detract from the fascinating spell. With a flashlight Mr. Hedley showed me the great extent of these underground corridors, and I imagined that if so friendly a librarian should ever hold a grudge against an author it would be an admirable place to lure him and leave him lost in the dark. He would never find his way out and his copyrights would expire long before his bones would be found. Joan Gutenberg, the library cat, dwells in that solemn maze of heavy brick arches, and she finds it depressing that the only literature stored down there is the overplus of old government documents.