oor. I will not buy your book, but I will send you to a man who
will give you ten pounds for it, I am sure, and then he will sell it
for fifteen." He wrote the address on a slip of paper. "Why, Mr.
Farrar, if an old friend, so to speak, can put the question, why in
the world--"

"The most natural thing," replied Mr. Farrar with a cold laugh; "I am
old, as I told you, and the younger men get all the work. That is all.
Nobody wants a genealogist and antiquary."

"Dear me, dear me! Why, Mr. Farrar, I remember now; you used to know
my poor son-in-law, who is dead eighteen years since. I was just
reading the last letter he ever wrote to me, just before he died. You
used to come here and sit with him in the evening. I remember now. So
you did."

"Thank you for your good will," said Mr. Farrar. "Yes, I remember your
son-in-law. I knew him before his marriage."

"Did you? Before his marriage? Then--" He was going to add, "Then you
can tell me his real name," but he paused, because it is a pity ever
to acknowledge ignorance, and especially ignorance in such elementary
matters as your son-in-law's name.

So Mr. Emblem checked himself.

"He ought to have been a rich man," Mr. Farrar continued; "but he
quarreled with his father, who cut him off with a shilling, I
suppose."

Then the poor scholar, who could find no market for his learned
papers, tied up his books again and went away with hanging head.

"Ugh!" Mr. James, who had been listening, groaned as Mr. Farrar passed
through the door. "Ugh! Call that a way of doing business? Why, if it
had been me, I'd have bought the book off of that old chap for a
couple o' pounds, I would. Ay, or a sov, so seedy he is, and wants
money so bad. And I know who'd have given twelve pound for it, in the
trade too. Call that carrying on business? He may well add up his
investments every day, it he can afford to chuck such chances. Ah, but
he'll retire soon." His fiery eyes brightened, and his face glowed
with the joy of anticipation. "He must retire before long."

There came another visitor. This time it was a lanky boy, with, a blue
bag over his shoulder and a notebook and pencil-stump in his hand. He
nodded to the assistant as to an old friend with whom one may be at
ease, set down his bag, opened his notebook, and nibbled his stump.
Then he read aloud, with a comma or semicolon between each, a dozen or
twenty titles. They were the names of the books which his employer
wished to pick