his sagacity--be illustrated more to advantage. Mr. James felt a glow
of virtue--would that he could grow daily and hourly, and more and
more toward the perfect fox. Then, indeed, and not till then would he
be able to live truly up to his second-hand books.

"Having tea with Iris; well--"

The speaker looked as if it required some effort to receive this
statement with resignation.

"He always does at six o'clock. Why shouldn't he?" asked Mr. James.

"Because, James, he spends the time in cockering up that gal whom he's
ruined and spoiled--him and the old nigger between them--so that her
mind is poisoned against her lawful relations, and nothing will
content her but coming into all the old man's money, instead of going
share and share alike, as a cousin should, and especially a
she-cousin, while there's a biscuit left in the locker and a drop of
rum in the cask."

"Ah!" said Mr. James with a touch of sympathy, called forth, perhaps,
by mention of the rum, which is a favorite drink with second-hand
booksellers' assistants.

"Nothing too good for her," the other went on; "the best of education,
pianos to play upon, and nobody good enough for her to know. Not on
visiting terms, if you please, with her neighbors; waiting for
duchesses to call upon her. And what is she, after all? A miserable
teacher!"

Mr. Joseph Gallop was a young man somewhere between twenty and thirty,
tall, large-limbed, well set-up, and broad-shouldered. A young man
who, at first sight, would seem eminently fitted to push his own
fortunes. Also, at first sight, a remarkably handsome fellow, with
straight, clear-cut features and light, curly hair. When he swung
along the street, his round hat carelessly thrown back, and his
handsome face lit up by the sun, the old women murmured a blessing
upon his comely head--as they used to do, a long time ago, upon the
comely and curly head of Absalom--and the young women looked meaningly
at one another--as was also done in the case of Absalom--and the
object of their admiration knew that they were saying to each other,
in the feminine way, where a look is as good as a whisper, "There goes
a handsome fellow." Those who knew him better, and had looked more
closely into his face, said that his mouth was bad and his eyes
shifty. The same opinion was held by the wiser sort as regards his
character. For, on the one hand, some averred that to their certain
knowledge Joe Gallop had shown himself a monster of ingrat