ke, which eddied and fumed under the glass lamp shades. Passing
down a narrow aisle between the alcoves the visitor noticed that some
of the compartments were wholly in darkness; in others where lamps were
glowing he could see a table and chairs. In one corner, under a sign
lettered ESSAYS, an elderly gentleman was reading, with a face of
fanatical ecstasy illumined by the sharp glare of electricity; but
there was no wreath of smoke about him so the newcomer concluded he was
not the proprietor.

As the young man approached the back of the shop the general effect
became more and more fantastic. On some skylight far overhead he could
hear the rain drumming; but otherwise the place was completely silent,
peopled only (so it seemed) by the gurgitating whorls of smoke and the
bright profile of the essay reader. It seemed like a secret fane, some
shrine of curious rites, and the young man's throat was tightened by a
stricture which was half agitation and half tobacco. Towering above
him into the gloom were shelves and shelves of books, darkling toward
the roof. He saw a table with a cylinder of brown paper and twine,
evidently where purchases might be wrapped; but there was no sign of an
attendant.

"This place may indeed be haunted," he thought, "perhaps by the
delighted soul of Sir Walter Raleigh, patron of the weed, but seemingly
not by the proprietors."

His eyes, searching the blue and vaporous vistas of the shop, were
caught by a circle of brightness that shone with a curious egg-like
lustre. It was round and white, gleaming in the sheen of a hanging
light, a bright island in a surf of tobacco smoke. He came more close,
and found it was a bald head.

This head (he then saw) surmounted a small, sharp-eyed man who sat
tilted back in a swivel chair, in a corner which seemed the nerve
centre of the establishment. The large pigeon-holed desk in front of
him was piled high with volumes of all sorts, with tins of tobacco and
newspaper clippings and letters. An antiquated typewriter, looking
something like a harpsichord, was half-buried in sheets of manuscript.
The little bald-headed man was smoking a corn-cob pipe and reading a
cook-book.

"I beg your pardon," said the caller, pleasantly; "is this the
proprietor?"

Mr. Roger Mifflin, the proprietor of "Parnassus at Home," looked up,
and the visitor saw that he had keen blue eyes, a short red beard, and
a convincing air of competent originality.

"It is," sa