not wanting to recount how he had learned of the shop and certainly not what he had hoped to find.
“I … I was just … walking past,” he muttered.
The man slapped his hands together again and said, “Then you may kindly just walk out. Books such as these are not for children.”
“Don’t you think that education is a good thing?” Lloyd asked stubbornly.
“Allein die Dosis macht dass ein Ding kein Gift ist,” the bookman said, sighing. “Good day.”
“I know what you said,” Lloyd replied.
“Yes, but you are not leaving as I asked. Will I have to call a constable?”
“No, I mean what you said in German.”
“Bully for you. And now I am addressing you in Latin. “Nemo me impune lacessit.”
“Why would I want to harm you?” Lloyd puzzled.
“What?” the dainty humped man started. “You know Latin, too?”
“Yes,” Lloyd answered. “Of course.”
The proprietor gave a sniff of disbelief and strode over to the nearest shelf and whisked out a volume of Catullus’s poetry. “All right,” he said, handing the open book to Lloyd and pointing. “Tell me what this says.”
Lloyd glanced down at the selected page and read, “Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. It means ‘I hate and love. You may ask why I do so. I do not know, but I feel it and am in torment.’ ”
“Hmm.” The man smiled, showing his calcium stain. “And what did I say before in German?”
“ ‘Only the dose insures the thing will not be a poison.’ ”
“Correct!” snapped the bookseller. “And in reference to education you may already have had too much—at least of a certain kind.”
“I hardly ever go to school,” Lloyd corrected. “But I am quick.”
“Perhaps,” the man said, flexing his hump. “But you are slow to leave. I believe you were sent by one of the local dilettantes to goad and annoy me.”
“I wasn’t sent by anyone!” Lloyd insisted. “I’m here on my own.”
There was something about the emphatic way the boy uttered this last remark, combined with his unexpected erudition, that made the bookseller change his attitude, for he brushed some of the dust from his suit and said, “All right, my learned young friend. Since you are so committed, you may remain here and read. I close at four, and you are not to wander outside this room. Understood?”
“Thank you!” Lloyd beamed. “Thank you. But … is there any key to how the books are organized?”
The humped man stroked his mustache.
“The key is right here,” he said, pointing to his shining forehead. “I know where every book is in the entire shop. Does my young sir have special interests?”
“I am interested in science. And magic,” Lloyd answered. “And … secrets.”
“I … see,” the bookseller said, arching his woolly eyebrows.
The humped man disappeared into the next room and Lloyd heard him foraging among the piles. He returned with an armload of Euclid’s Elements and a book concerning Hooke’s microscopy and an alchemical folio titled “Tract on the Tincture and Oil of Antimony,” by Roger Bacon.
“Feast your mind on these. But mark what I say about staying in this room.”
So saying, the man spun around and retreated back into the gloom of maps and tomes, taking the delicate astringency of the witch hazel with him. To the boy’s surprise, other people did enter the shop. Those that he glimpsed passing by in the hall did not look much like buyers to him, but as they did not take any notice of him he paid them little mind and burrowed deeper into his reading. Once he heard the bookseller speaking in French in low tones to someone in the back. At five minutes to four, the humped man reappeared carrying a heavy set of keys.
“What is your name, young scholar?” the man asked.
Lloyd told him his name and swallowed a clump of dust and phlegm.
“My name is Wolfgang Schelling,” the bookseller informed him. “I must say, you look more likely to pinch an apple than to go to the trouble of finding a book to read. But perhaps I don’t know very much about boys. I was never allowed to be one myself, and I have no children of my own. In any case, it’s time for you to go wherever you call home. Would you like to come back here again to study?”
“More than anything,” Lloyd cried, and this was almost true.
“All right,” Schelling purred. “Here are the rules. You are not to rummage about. Ever. I will select the