see of the shop inside accorded but little better
with his mental picture of the place. Books were there in abundance,
many of them presenting some degree of order, and as many more seemingly
in hopeless confusion.

He got a glimpse of a counter, at which he supposed the business of the
place was transacted, but the inadequate back view of the figure of a
young man bending at a desk in a gloomy corner was the only thing
suggesting life.

His first peep assuredly was not what he had looked forward to, but who
knew to what hidden chambers of interest the door at the far side of the
front shop gave access?

Afraid to further pursue his inspection, Henry moved away somewhat
hurriedly when the young man at the desk showed signs of moving towards
the door, having probably scented a customer.

He wandered next to Shakespeare's Church, lingering on the way at the
Memorial, then fresh from the hands of the builders, and loudly out of
harmony with everything else in Stratford. Anon he was peeping in at
the old Grammar School and the Guild Hall, and tea-time found him
loitering around the Birthplace, with half a desire to set out then and
there to Anne Hathaway's Cottage.

The business of dealing in Shakespeare's memory had not yet developed
into Stratford's staple industry, nor had local boyhood begun to earn
precarious pennies by waylaying visitors and rehearsing to them in
parrot fashion the leading dates in the life of the poet. But the
principal show-place of the town had long been attracting pilgrims from
the ends of the earth, and for the first time in his life Henry heard
the English language produced with strong nasal accompaniment by a group
of brisk-looking young men and women issuing from the shrine in Market
Street.

There was little sleep for him that night, nor was the unusual
circumstances of his sharing a bed with another youth the cause of it.
He wondered at his ability to peep in at Mr. Griggs's door without
entering precipitately and avowing himself the new assistant. But his
father's instructions on this point had been explicit. He had to present
himself at the proper hour of the morning; neither early nor late, but
at the hour precisely. It would have been unbusiness-like to stroll in
the previous afternoon, and if business-like habits were not acquired
now they never would be.

But Henry had read so recently the wonderful story of "Monte Cristo,"
and was so impressed by the hero's habit of keeping