could not afford altogether to ignore public opinion.

It will have been gathered by now that although to every outward
appearance an intensely commonplace, podgy personality, Edward John
Charles possessed within his ample bosom the qualities which made him
curiously different from the ruck of village humanity. It would be a
fair assumption that in all the countless hamlets of sweet Ardenshire
there lived not another parent who could contemplate with equanimity a
bookish strain in the blood of any of his offspring.

The literary taste has ever been discouraged in these parts of the green
Midlands, and such stray books as the postmaster sold to the village
folk were bought chiefly for the gilt on their covers, which rendered
them eyeable objects for the parlour table. He himself had not read a
dozen books in all his prosperous life, and perhaps his loud interest
in literature was nothing better than affectation, springing from the
accident of his becoming the most convenient agent for supplying the
"county people" in the neighbourhood with their literary goods.
Beginning in affectation, his pretended admiration of books and bookmen
had fostered a serious love for them in his son, and Edward John was
just the man to boldly face the consequences.

When his mind was made up on the necessity of translating Henry to a new
field in which his dazzling qualities could radiate with ampler freedom
than in the narrow confines of Hampton Bagot, his thoughts turned to his
friend, Mr. Ephraim Griggs, who represented literature in the very
stronghold of its greatest captain, and already he saw Henry a busy
assistant in the well-known second-hand book-shop at Stratford-on-Avon.
A word from him to Mr. Griggs, and the golden gates of Bookland would
swing wide open to the glittering Henry!

So, without a hint of his mission and its weighty issues, the carrier's
waggon creaked with the added weight of Edward John Charles a few
mornings later, on its way to Stratford.

For all who are willing to work without monetary reward there is no lack
of opportunity, and Mr. Griggs readily consented to receive Henry into
his business as a second assistant. The die was cast, and in the evening
the postmaster returned mysteriously happy. Although an inveterate
gossip, he could be tantalisingly silent when it suited his mood, and as
he surveyed the village street from his accustomed post that evening,
there was nothing but the usual serenity of his f