He was a small man, not running much over five feet five, but I was physically very much aware of him. He gave off a confusion of qualities which would have put a dog in ecstasies but which can only puzzle a man. His hair was of that slick black kind—combed like a boy’s on the side and a little ragged at the extremities—that strongly suggests baldness underneath. Forehead and chin were vertically cleft along the line of a rather flat nose and contrasted with a wide, tight, succulently red mouth. A floppy black Windsor tie dragged on his chest. He wore no coat. A vest buttoned once at the bottom enclosed a yellow and green plaid shirt and supported a mildly straining belly. The pants were dark, wrinkled at the crotch and baggy at the knees. I did not much notice his hands at the time, but I recall that they were muscular and very hairy, and that the left one incongruously exposed a large signet ring. Altogether, I could not keep my eyes off him.

Nor could I have done so in any wise while I remembered his office. He was, this small man, censor of printed matter for an eastern port. As I had had the most excellent reasons to know during my years in the book business, his authority was practically supreme, his opinions irreversible, and his taste above impeachment. It was this authority which had brought me to his office. He was representing, for me, the benevolent side of bureaucracy, for he had agreed to return a certain book to England instead of confiscating it. I was representing my old employer, who was too busy that morning to come in himself. I had brought with me, by the censor’s instructions, string, paper, corrugated cardboard, and an addressed label: these the government does not furnish those it favors.

Our initial contact was pleasant. He had the book on his desk, all ready for me, and very agreeably got me some sealing wax and glue. While I was doing up the bundle and burning my fingers on the melting wax, I reflected on the innocuous character of the book in question. It was a volume in a series called The Art of Eastern Love. The series was mostly composed of translation and paraphrase of various Indian texts, and circulated, I knew, freely enough in England. I wondered if perhaps it had not been banned largely on account of its inflammatory title; so I asked him what he found wrong with it. He was eager to talk.

“It’s too blasé,” he said; and for the rest of the time I was there I had nothing to do but prompt him occasionally. He had the great merit of believing, in his own way, in the dignity of his job and in his own qualifications therefore. “It’s too blasé,” he repeated. “It’s not as bad as some; it’s not nearly so bad as a good many. I thought it was dull, myself. But it treats a sacred subject in a blasé way, and nothing like that can get by me. You ought to see the stuff that comes in here. You ought to have the opportunity to see the vile, filthy stuff that comes in here. There’s no doubt about it, it’s filthy. I read it all and I know. But,” he said, drawing himself up a little and raising his voice, “none of it gets by me. The kind of books you fellows get, I mean the ones you don’t get, are sweet and virtuous beside the ones I’m thinking of. You can’t imagine the vile stuff they try and get in.”

I said I thought I could imagine very well, and asked him if he had ever felt that so much contact with filth had not perhaps injured him a little. Had he ever felt the beginning of corruption? He looked at me sharply, and then spoke softly, “Listen,” he said. “I’m speaking in my official capacity. As a human being it’s different. As a human being I get a big kick out of some of those books. I get a thrill. I’m not any different from the next man.” He paused, with a reminiscent illumination on his face. “I been here at this job six years now. I used to hit the high spots. I suppose I’ve read more dirty books than any man in New England, and I could make the biggest collection of erotica in this country if I wanted to. Why, in the last two years I’ve seized 272 different titles—thousands of volumes—and I’ve read them all.”