, under the title of "Literature Among the Farmers," but it had
branched out until it began to appear that (in bulk at least) Ridpath
would have to look to his linoleum laurels. The manuscript in its
present state had neither beginning nor end, but it was growing
strenuously in the middle, and hundreds of pages were covered with
Roger's minute script. The chapter on "Ars Bibliopolae," or the art of
bookselling, would be, he hoped, a classic among generations of book
vendors still unborn. Seated at his disorderly desk, caressed by a
counterpane of drifting tobacco haze, he would pore over the
manuscript, crossing out, interpolating, re-arguing, and then referring
to volumes on his shelves. Bock would snore under the chair, and soon
Roger's brain would begin to waver. In the end he would fall asleep
over his papers, wake with a cramp about two o'clock, and creak
irritably to a lonely bed.

All this we mention only to explain how it was that Roger was dozing at
his desk about midnight, the evening after the call paid by Aubrey
Gilbert. He was awakened by a draught of chill air passing like a
mountain brook over his bald pate. Stiffly he sat up and looked about.
The shop was in darkness save for the bright electric over his head.
Bock, of more regular habit than his master, had gone back to his couch
in the kitchen, made of a packing case that had once coffined a set of
the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

"That's funny," said Roger to himself. "Surely I locked the door?" He
walked to the front of the shop, switching on the cluster of lights
that hung from the ceiling. The door was ajar, but everything else
seemed as usual. Bock, hearing his footsteps, came trotting out from
the kitchen, his claws rattling on the bare wooden floor. He looked up
with the patient inquiry of a dog accustomed to the eccentricities of
his patron.

"I guess I'm getting absent-minded," said Roger. "I must have left the
door open." He closed and locked it. Then he noticed that the terrier
was sniffing in the History alcove, which was at the front of the shop
on the left-hand side.

"What is it, old man?" said Roger. "Want something to read in bed?" He
turned on the light in that alcove. Everything appeared normal. Then
he noticed a book that projected an inch or so beyond the even line of
bindings. It was a fad of Roger's to keep all his books in a flat row
on the shelves, and almost every evening at closing time he used to run
his