“This,” he told me, “is only the first of the series.  We publish six volumes full of literchoor.  You see what a heavy book this is?”

I tested it in my hand:  it was a heavy book.

“The entire set,” he said, “weighs over ten pounds.  There are 1,162 pages, enough paper if laid down flat, end to end, to reach half a mile.”

I cannot quote his exact language:  there was too much of it, but he made an impressive showing of the amount of literature that could be had at a very low price per pound.  Mr. Dixon was a hypnotist.  He fixed me with his glittering eye, and he talked so fast, and his ideas upon the subject were so original that he held me spellbound.  At first I was inclined to be provoked:  one does not like to be forcibly hypnotised, but gradually the situation began to amuse me, the more so when Harriet came in.

“Did you ever see a more beautiful binding?” asked the agent, holding his book admiringly at arm’s length.  “This up here,” he said, pointing to the illuminated cover, “is the Muse of Poetry She is scattering flowers—­poems, you know.  Fine idea, ain’t it?  Colouring fine, too.”

He jumped up quickly and laid the book on my table, to the evident distress of Harriet.

“Trims up the room, don’t it?” he exclaimed, turning his head a little to one side and observing the effect with an expression of affectionate admiration.

“How much,” I asked, “will you sell the covers for without the insides?”

“Without the insides?”

“Yes,” I said, “the binding will trim up my table just as well without the insides.”

I thought he looked at me a little suspiciously, but he was evidently satisfied by my expression of countenance, for he answered promptly: 

“Oh, but you want the insides.  That’s what the books are for.  The bindings are never sold alone.”

He then went on to tell me the prices and terms of payment, until it really seemed that it would be cheaper to buy the books than to let him carry them away again.  Harriet stood in the doorway behind him frowning and evidently trying to catch my eye.  But I kept my face turned aside so that I could not see her signal of distress and my eyes fixed on the young man Dixon.  It was as good as a play.  Harriet there, serious-minded, thinking I was being befooled, and the agent thinking he was befooling me, and I, thinking I was befooling both of them—­and all of us wrong.  It was very like life wherever you find it.

Finally, I took the book which he had been urging upon me, at which Harriet coughed meaningly to attract my attention.  She knew the danger when I really got my hands on a book.  But I made up as innocent as a child.  I opened the book almost at random—­and it was as though, walking down a strange road, I had come upon an old tried friend not seen before in years.  For there on the page before me I read: 

“The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending we lay waste our powers: 
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! 
The sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
But are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.”