He seemed upset not to have a small bookshelf over his table, so Gervaise promised to get him one.
He had "The History of Ten Years" by Louis Blanc (except for the first volume), Lamartine's "The Girondins" in installments, "The Mysteries of Paris" and "The Wandering Jew" by Eugene Sue, and a quantity of booklets on philosophic and humanitarian subjects picked up from used book dealers.
His newspapers were his prized possessions, a collection made over a number of years.

Whenever he read an article in a cafe that seemed to him to agree with his own ideas, he would buy that newspaper and keep it.

He had an enormous bundle of them, papers of every date and every title, piled up in no discernable order.

He patted them and said to the other two: "You see that?
No one else can boast of having anything to match it.
You can't imagine all that's in there.

I mean, if they put into practice only half the ideas, it would clean up the social order overnight.