his appointments to
the second, that he required no advice on this point.

"Suppose I go down in the morning and enter the shop when the
market-clock is striking the fifth note of nine. That would be a good
start to make!"

Thus he thought, and thus he did. But alas! the new Monte Cristo found
no appreciative audience awaiting him.

For a moment he stood at the counter in the middle of the shop, with
half a mind to run away. His entry had been unheralded, unobserved. No
one was visible. But hesitating whether to knock on the counter, as
customers at Hampton Post Office were wont to do, or take down a book
until someone appeared, he became aware of certain sounds issuing from
behind a wooden partition which enclosed a corner of the shop.

Henry shuffled his feet noisily, and plucked up courage to rap on the
counter, for the market-clock had ceased its striking by quite a minute,
and no one had witnessed his romantic punctuality.

In answer to the knocking there appeared from behind the partition a
youngster of some twelve years, who seemed to have been disturbed in
some pleasant but undutiful occupation. On seeing that the person at the
counter was merely a youth, just old enough to make a boy wish to be
his age, but not old enough to inspire him with respect, the youngster,
without a word of inquiry or apology, stooped down and lifted on to the
counter a little bull pup, which he stroked with all the pride of a
fancier, challenging Henry with his eyes to produce its equal.

Loftily indifferent to the behaviour of the boy, and secretly wondering
if Monte Cristo had ever been so absurdly received on any of the
occasions when he opened a door as the clock struck the appointed hour
of meeting, Henry said, with a touch of indignation in his voice:

"I am the new assistant, and I wish to see Mr. Griggs."

The boy gave a whistle of surprise, and eyed Henry boldly. Hastily
stowing away the pup in some secret receptacle under the counter, he
proceeded to the side-door, taking a backward glance at the new
assistant, and disclosing under his snub nose a very wide and smiling
mouth.

"Shop!" bawled the lad, as he opened the door.

Without another word, and leaving the door ajar, he went and perched
himself on a stool, from which position he brazenly surveyed the new
assistant.

Henry waited, quailing somewhat under the searching gaze of this
juvenile servitor in the temple of literature. He surveyed at leisure
the wal