roun' de block!"

Isaac, a small Polish Jew with tragic, dark eyes and one suspender,
received these and several more such suggestions with all the calm
impenetrability of his race.

"Here's de guy," was all he vouchsafed before he went back to the
unsocial nook where, afternoon by faithful afternoon, he read away at a
fat three-volume life of Alexander Hamilton.

The Liberry Teacher looked up without stopping her story, and smiled a
familiar greeting to the elderly gentleman, who was waiting a little
uncertainly at the Children's Room door, and had obviously been looking
for her in vain. He smiled and nodded in return.

"Just a minute, please, Mr. De Guenther," said the Liberry Teacher
cheerfully.

The elderly gentleman nodded again, crossed to Isaac and his ponderous
volumes, and began to talk to him with that benign lack of haste which
usually means a very competent personality. Phyllis hurried somewhat
with Robin Hood among his little fishes, and felt happier. It was
always, in her eventless life, something of a pleasant adventure to
have Mr. De Guenther or his wife drop in to see her. There was usually
something pleasant at the end of it.

They were an elderly couple whom she had known for some years. They were
so leisurely and trim and gentle-spoken that long ago, when she was only
a timorous substitute behind the circle of the big charging-desk, she
had picked them both out as people-you'd-like-if-you-got-the-chance.
Then she had waited on them, and identified them by their cards as
belonging to the same family. Then, one day, with a pleased little
quiver of joy, she had found him in the city Who's Who, age, profession
(he was a corporation lawyer), middle names, favorite recreation, and
all. Gradually she had come to know them both very well in a waiting-on
way. She often chose love-stories that ended happily and had colored
illustrations for Mrs. De Guenther when she was at home having
rheumatism; she had saved more detective stories for Mr. De Guenther
than her superiors ever knew; and once she had found his black-rimmed
eye-glasses where he had left them between the pages of the Pri-Zuz
volume of the encyclopedia, and mailed them to him.

When she had vanished temporarily from sight into the nunnery-promotion
of the cataloguing room the De Guenthers had still remembered her. Twice
she had been asked to Sunday dinner at their house, and had joyously
gone and remembered it as joyously for months afterw