side with his father, trimming the ready
made review slips which publishers send out with books, and seeing that
the paste pot never got empty or the paste too thick. Harold, as his
father often proudly observed, was a born book reviewer. From infancy it
was observed that the outside of a book always interested him more than
the inside, and once when his school teacher directed him to write a
sentence containing the word "book," he wrote: "The book is attractively
bound and is profusely illustrated."

One evening, in the very busiest week of the busy season, little
Harold's was the only bright face at the supper table. Abner Skipp had
had a bad day in the city; Mrs. Skipp and Angelica were exhausted from
reviewing and household cares, and Grandpa was peevish because Abner had
taken the "Pea Green Fairy Book" away from him and given him instead a
"Child's History of the Congo Free State."

"What is the matter, Abner?" his wife asked him when the others of the
family had retired. "Does your arm hurt you again?"

"No, wife," replied Abner Skipp. "My arm does not trouble me; I have
handled only the lightest literature for the last fortnight. Alas! it is
the same old worry. The interest on the mortgage will be due again next
week, and in spite of the fact that the cellar is so full of books that
I can scarcely get into it, we have not a dollar above the sum required
to meet our monthly bills."

III.

"Alas!" exclaimed the hapless Abner Skipp, next morning, "it seems as if
nothing was being published this fall except popular novels, and I
obtained an average of less than twenty cents on the last sackload I
took to town, not counting the dead ones which I sold to the junkman."

"If only there were some way of keeping them alive for a few days
longer!" said Mrs. Skipp. "If one could only stimulate the heart action
by injecting strychnine!"

"Or even embalm them," said Abner, sharing his wife's grewsome humor.
"But no; it is impossible to deceive a second-hand bookseller. He seems
to know to the minute when a novel is dead, and declines to turn his
shop into a literary morgue." The poor man sighed. "If my employers
would send me a few volumes of biography, or an encyclopedia, or a set
of Shakespeare, we could easily meet the interest on the mortgage."

"I wish, Abner, that I could be of more help to you," said Mrs. Skipp.
"If I could break myself of the habit of glancing at the last chapter of
a novel before reviewing