Do We Buy Books?我们是否购书？

I have recently been in the throes1 of a double removal， and in the course of the operation comments were made by one person or another concerned in it on the prominence of books in my belongings. The van-man， with a large experience of removals， paid the tribute of astonishment at the spectacle， and the people who came to look at the house gaped at the books as though they were the last thing they expected to see in a decent suburban residence. Hitherto I had been rather ashamed of my library. In the course of a longish life I have accumulated some 2，000 books. There is not much rubbish among them， for I have thinned them out periodically， but there are shameful blanks that are unfilled， and it had never occurred to me to think that they formed an unusual collection for a middle-class household.

我最近为搬出旧居迁入新宅忙得够呛，其间有一两个相关人员，见我的个人物品中书籍多得格外醒目，便议论了几句。（剩余8051字）