spade guineas in the iron
box.

The old man sat down by the fire without removing his hat, motioning to
her to shut the door, which she was loth to do, for the little room was
smothered with smoke. Troubled with asthma, he coughed incessantly, and
mopped his mouth with a vast silk handkerchief, but his dull blood
craved for warmth, and he got his knees close to the grate, and piled up
the coal till it smoked and smoked, and filled the close apartment with
a suffocating haze of carbon. To be asked into Father Iden's sanctuary
was an honour, but, like other honours, it had to be paid for.

Amaryllis gasped as she sat down, and tried to breathe as short as
possible, to avoid inhaling more than she could bear.

"Books," said her grandfather, pointing to the bookcases, which occupied
three sides of the room. "Books--you like books; look at them--go and
see."

To humour him, Amaryllis rose, and appeared to look carefully along the
shelves which she had scanned so many times before. They contained very
good books indeed, such books as were not to be found elsewhere
throughout the whole town of Woolhorton, and perhaps hardly in the
county, old and rare volumes of price, such as Sotheby, Wilkinson, and
Co. delight to offer to collectors, such as Bernard Quaritch, that giant
of the modern auction room, would have written magnificent cheques for.

Did you ever see the Giant Quaritch in the auction-room bidding for
books? It is one of the sights of London, let me tell you, to any one
who thinks or is alive to the present day. Most sights are reputations
merely--the pale reflection of things that were real once. This sight is
something of the living time, the day in which we live. Get an
_Athenaeum_ in the season, examine the advertisements of book auctions,
and attend the next great sale of some famous library.

You have a recollection of the giant who sat by the highway and devoured
the pilgrims who passed? This giant sits in the middle of the ring and
devours the books set loose upon their travels after the repose of
centuries.

What prices to give! No one can withstand him. From Paris they send
agents with a million francs at their back; from Berlin and Vienna come
the eager snappers-up of much considered trifles, but in vain. They only
get what the Giant chooses to leave them.

Books that nobody ever heard of fetch L50, L60, L100, L200; wretched
little books never opened since they were printed; dull duodecimos on
the