In the midst of the shop and its gorgeous contents sat one who, to judge from his appearance (though ’twas a difficult task, as, in sooth, his back was turned), had just reached that happy period of life when the Boy is expanding into the Man.  O Youth, Youth!  Happy and Beautiful!  O fresh and roseate dawn of life; when the dew yet lies on the flowers, ere they have been scorched and withered by Passion’s fiery Sun!  Immersed in thought or study, and indifferent to the din around him, sat the boy.  A careless guardian was he of the treasures confided to him.  The crowd passed in Chepe; he never marked it.  The sun shone on Chepe; he only asked that it should illumine the page he read.  The knave might filch his treasures; he was heedless of the knave.  The customer might enter; but his book was all in all to him.

And indeed a customer was there; a little hand was tapping on the counter with a pretty impatience; a pair of arch eyes were gazing at the boy, admiring, perhaps, his manly proportions through the homely and tightened garments he wore.

“Ahem! sir!  I say, young man!” the customer exclaimed.

“Ton d’apameibomenos prosephe,” read on the student, his voice choked with emotion.  “What language!” he said; “how rich, how noble, how sonorous! prosephe podas—­”

The customer burst out into a fit of laughter so shrill and cheery, that the young Student could not but turn round, and blushing, for the first time remarked her.  “A pretty grocer’s boy you are,” she cried, “with your applepiebomenos and your French and lingo.  Am I to be kept waiting for hever?”

“Pardon, fair Maiden,” said he, with high-bred courtesy:  “’twas not French I read, ’twas the Godlike language of the blind old bard.  In what can I be serviceable to ye, lady?” and to spring from his desk, to smooth his apron, to stand before her the obedient Shop Boy, the Poet no more, was the work of a moment.

“I might have prigged this box of figs,” the damsel said good-naturedly, “and you’d never have turned round.”

“They came from the country of Hector,” the boy said.  “Would you have currants, lady?  These once bloomed in the island gardens of the blue Aegean.  They are uncommon fine ones, and the figure is low; they’re fourpence-halfpenny a pound.  Would ye mayhap make trial of our teas?  We do not advertise, as some folks do:  but sell as low as any other house.”

“You’re precious young to have all these good things,” the girl exclaimed, not unwilling, seemingly, to prolong the conversation.  “If I was you, and stood behind the counter, I should be eating figs the whole day long.”

“Time was,” answered the lad, “and not long since I thought so too.  I thought I never should be tired of figs.  But my old uncle bade me take my fill, and now in sooth I am aweary of them.”

“I think you gentlemen are always so,” the coquette said.