stepped from the elevator car a somewhat portly little man who
joined Mr. Wharton. He wore a rather queer looking, very big derby
hat, oddly flat on top. His shoulders were hooped up somewhat like the
figure of Joseph Choate. A rather funny, square, box-like body on
little legs. An English look to his clothes. Under his arm an
odd-looking club of a walking-stick. Mr. Brownell turned quickly to
this rather amusing though not undistinguished figure, and said, "Mr.
James--Brownell." The quaint gentleman took off his big hat,
discovering to our intent curiosity a polished bald dome, and began
instantly to talk, very earnestly, steadily, in a moderately pitched
voice, gesticulating with an even rhythmic beat with his right hand,
raised close to his face.

Joined presently by Mrs. Wharton, the party, bidding Mr. Brownell
adieu, took a somewhat humorous departure (we felt) from the shop; Mr.
James, with some suddenness, preceding out the door. Moving nimbly up
the Avenue, he was overhauled by Mrs. Wharton under full sail, who
attached herself to his arm. Her husband by an energetic forward play
around the end achieved her other wing. In this formation, sticks
flashing, skirt whipping, with a somewhat spirited mien, the august
spectacle receded from our rapt view, to be at length obliterated as a
unit by the general human scene.

We saw Mr. James after this a number of times. Accompanied again by
Mrs. Wharton, and later in the charge (such was the effect) of another
lady, who, we understood, drives regularly to her social chariot
literary lions. In something like six years' observation of the human
being in a book shop, we have never seen any person so thoroughly in a
book store, a magazine, that is, of books, as Mr. James. One can be,
you know--it is most common, indeed--in a book store and at the same
time not be in a book store--any more than if one were in a hotel
lobby. Mr. James "snooked" around the shop. He ran his nose over the
tables, and inch by inch (he must be very shortsighted) along the
walls, stood on tiptoe and pulled down volumes from high places,
rummaged in dark corners, was apparently oblivious of the presence of
anything but the books. He was not the slightest in a hurry. He would
have been, we felt, content and quite happy, like a child with blocks,
to play this way by himself all day.

Happening, by our close proximity, to turn to us the first time in the
shop that he required attenti