ke coffee with his evening
meal. I made no answer, but, opening my pocket-book, paid and discharged
him.

V.

CHESTER WALKIRK.

It is not my custom to be discouraged by a first failure. I looked over
the letters which had been sent to me in answer to my advertisement, and
wrote to another of the applicants, who very promptly came to see me.

The appearance of this man somewhat discouraged me. My first thought
concerning him was that a man who seemed to be so thoroughly alive was
not likely to prove a good listener. But after I had had a talk with him
I determined to give him a trial. Of one thing I was satisfied: he would
keep awake. He was a man of cheerful aspect; alert in motion, glance,
and speech. His age was about forty; he was of medium size, a little
inclined to be stout, and his face, upon which he wore no hair, was
somewhat ruddy. In dress he was neat and proper, and he had an air of
friendly deference, which seemed to me to suit the position I wished him
to fill.

He spoke of himself and his qualifications with tact, if not with
modesty, and rated very highly his ability to serve me as a listener;
but he did so in a manner intended to convince me that he was not
boasting, but stating facts which it was necessary I should know. His
experience had been varied: he had acted as a tutor, a traveling
companion, a confidential clerk, a collector of information for
technical writers, and in other capacities requiring facility of
adaptation to exigencies. At present he was engaged in making a
catalogue for a collector of prints, whose treasures, in the course of
years, had increased to such an extent that it was impossible for him to
remember what his long rows of portfolios contained. The collector was
not willing that work among his engravings should be done by artificial
light, and, as the evenings of my visitor were therefore disengaged, he
said he should be glad to occupy them in a manner which would not only
be profitable to him, but, he was quite sure, would be very interesting.

The man's name was Chester Walkirk, and I engaged him to come to me
every evening, as my first listener had done.

I began my discourses with Walkirk with much less confidence and
pleasurable anticipation than I had felt with regard to the quiet,
unassuming elderly person who had been my first listener, and whom I had
supposed to be a very model of receptivity. The new man I feared would
demand more,--if not by word, a