other two odd. These books were taller and more distinguished than any
of their neighbours. Their sole possible rivals were half a dozen
garishly bound Middle School prizes, machine-tooled, and to be mistaken
for treasures only at a distance of several yards.

Edwin trembled, and loathed himself for trembling. He walked to the
window.

"What be these?" Darius inquired.

"Oh! Some books I've been picking up."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SIX.

That same morning Edwin had been to the Saint Luke's Covered Market to
buy some apples for Maggie, who had not yet perfected the organisation
necessary to a house-mistress who does not live within half a minute of
a large central source of supplies. And, to his astonishment, he had
observed that one of the interior shops was occupied by a second-hand
bookseller with an address at Hanbridge. He had never noticed the shop
before, or, if he had noticed it, he had despised it. But the chat with
Tom Orgreave had awakened in him the alertness of a hunter. The shop
was not formally open--Wednesday's market being only half a market. The
shopkeeper, however, was busy within. Edwin loitered. Behind the piles
of negligible sermons, pietisms, keepsakes, schoolbooks, and
`Aristotles' (tied up in red twine, these last), he could descry, in the
farther gloom, actual folios and quartos. It was like seeing the gleam
of nuggets on the familiar slopes of Mow Cop, which is the Five Towns'
mountain. The proprietor, an extraordinarily grimy man, invited him to
examine. He could not refuse. He found Byron's "Childe Harold" in one
volume and "Don Juan" in another, both royal octavo editions, slightly
stained, but bound in full calf. He bought them. He knew that to keep
his resolutions he must read a lot of poetry. Then he saw Voltaire's
prose tales in four volumes, in French,--an enchanting Didot edition,
with ink as black as Hades and paper as white as snow; also bound in
full calf. He bought them. And then the proprietor showed him, in
eight similar volumes, Voltaire's "Dictionnaire Philosophique." He did
not want it; but it matched the tales and it was impressive to the eye.
And so he bought the other eight volumes. The total cost was seventeen
shillings. He was intoxicated and he was frightened. What a nucleus
for a collection of real books, of treasures! Those volumes would do no
shame even to Tom Orgreave's bookcase. An