We are delighted to see you. I
hope you'll be happy with us, but I rather doubt it. Mr. Mifflin is a
hard man to get along with."

"Oh, I'm sure of it!" cried Titania. "I mean, I'm sure I shall be
happy! You mustn't believe a word of what Dad says about me. I'm
crazy about books. I don't see how you can bear to sell them. I
brought these violets for you, Mrs. Mifflin."

"How perfectly sweet of you," said Helen, captivated already. "Come
along, we'll put them right in water. I'll show you your room."

Roger heard them moving about overhead. It suddenly occurred to him
that the shop was rather a dingy place for a young girl. "I wish I had
thought to get in a cash register," he mused. "She'll think I'm
terribly unbusiness-like."

"Now," said Mrs. Mifflin, as she and Titania came downstairs again,
"I'm making some pastry, so I'm going to turn you over to your
employer. He can show you round the shop and tell you where all the
books are."

"Before we begin," said Titania, "just let me give Bock his present."
She showed a large package of tissue paper and, unwinding innumerable
layers, finally disclosed a stalwart bone. "I was lunching at
Sherry's, and I made the head waiter give me this. He was awfully
amused."

"Come along into the kitchen and give it to him," said Helen. "He'll
be your friend for life."

"What an adorable kennel!" cried Titania, when she saw the remodelled
packing-case that served Bock as a retreat. The bookseller's ingenious
carpentry had built it into the similitude of a Carnegie library, with
the sign READING-ROOM over the door; and he had painted imitation
book-shelves along the interior.

"You'll get used to Mr. Mifflin after a while," said Helen amusedly.
"He spent all one winter getting that kennel fixed to his liking. You
might have thought he was going to live in it instead of Bock. All the
titles that he painted in there are books that have dogs in them, and a
lot of them he made up."

Titania insisted on getting down to peer inside. Bock was much
flattered at this attention from the new planet that had swum into his
kennel.

"Gracious!" she said, "here's 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Canine.' I do think
that's clever!"

"Oh, there are a lot more," said Helen. "The works of Bonar Law, and
Bohn's 'Classics,' and 'Catechisms on Dogma' and goodness knows what.
If Roger paid half as much attention to business as he does to jokes of
that sort, we'd be rich. Now, you run a