Great Portland Street

Sometimes I added the labor of a porter to my fasting endured for the sake of books.

At the little shop near Portland Road Station I came upon a first edition of Gibbon, the price an absurdity—I think it was a shilling a volume.

To possess those clean-paged quartos I would have sold my coat.

As it happened, I had not money enough with me, but sufficient at home.

I suppose I could easily get another copy now, but it would not be to me what that other was, with its memory of dust and toil.

Thirteen.

There must be several men of spirit and experience akin to mine who remember that little bookshop opposite Portland Road Station.

It had a peculiar character.

Uh, and my name was, you know, the, the byline was there in the magazine underneath the review, and it's still to this day, like, one of my prou- ...

I can remember getting a copy of the magazine, sitting at, um, Great Portland Street tube station and rifling through to my review and just, like-

Oh

... welling up, welling up with happiness.