nds who put us 'up' to good things in the
way of gold-mines and generously left us to pay the piper.

[Illustration: _A few Types in Farringdon Road._]

However picturesque may be the calling of the bookstall-keeper to the
person who experiences a fiendish delight in getting a 6d. book out of
him for 5-1/2d., the calling is on the whole a very hard one. Exposed
to all weathers, these men have a veritable struggle for existence.
Their actual profits rarely exceed 30s. or L2 weekly. They vary greatly,
of course, according to weather, and a wet Saturday makes a very
material difference to their takings. Many weeks throughout the year
these takings do not average more than 8s. or 10s. We have made
inquiries among most of the bookstall-keepers in the Metropolis, and the
above facts can be depended upon. When these men happen upon a rare
book, they nearly invariably sell it to one of the better-class
booksellers. By this means they make an immediate profit and effect a
ready sale. There is beyond this a numerous class of what may be
described as 'book-ghouls,' or men who make it a business to haunt the
cheap bookstalls and bag the better-class or more saleable books and
hawk them around to the shops, and so make a few shillings on which to
support a precarious existence, in which beer and tobacco are the sole
delights. We once met a man who did a roaring trade of this description,
chiefly with the British Museum. He took notes of every book that struck
him as being curious or out of the way, and those which he discovered to
be absent from the Museum he would at once purchase. He was great in the
matter of editions, such as Pope, Junius, Coleridge, and so forth. The
Museum is naturally lacking in hundreds of editions of English authors;
but as these editions, almost without exception, possess no literary
value, their presence (or absence) was not a matter of importance. For
some months the 'collector' referred to inundated the Museum with these
unimportant editions. Our friend discovered that the Museum authorities,
ignoring the prices which he placed on his wares, would only have them
at their own figures--which showed a curious similarity to those at
which the vendor had obtained them--and this, coupled with the fact that
they refused to purchase many of the items offered at any price, led him
to the conclusion that he was serving his country at too cheap a rate.
It is scarcely necessary to add that he is now following a voc