“I might, or I might not.  Only a few people about here, so I understand, can appreciate this sort of thing.”

“What is it worth?” He was still eying him closely.  People who praised his things were those who never wanted to buy.

“Not very much,” replied Felix.

“Oh, but I thought you said it was very rare?”

“So it is—­almost too rare—­and almost too old.  If it had been done fifty or more years later, on one of Gutenberg’s presses, Quaritch might give you two thousand pounds for it.  Hand-work—­which ought really to be more valuable than machine-work—­is worth pence, where the other sells for pounds.  One of Gutenberg’s Bibles sold here a year ago for three thousand guineas, so I am told.  What are the other two like?”

“No difference—­a clasp is gone from one.  The other is—­” He stopped, his mien suddenly changing to one of marked respect, even to one of awe.  “Will you do me a favor, sir?”

“With pleasure”—­again the same quiet smile.  He had read the financial workings of the bookseller’s mind with infinite amusement and decided to see more of him.  “What can I do for you?”

“I want you to come over with me to my shop.  You won’t object, will you, Otto?  I won’t keep him a minute.”

“Let me come a little later, sir, say about nine o’clock.  I have work here until six and an engagement, which is important, until nine.  You are open as late as that?”

“Oh, I am always open, or can be,” Kelsey answered.  “What would I shut up shop for except to keep out the rats—­human and otherwise?  I live in my place, and, as I live alone, nobody ever disturbs me—­nobody I want to see—­and I do want you, and want you very much.  Well, then, come at nine, and if the blinds are up, ring the bell.”  And so the acquaintance began.

And yet, interesting as he found these diversions with his neighbors, there were moments when, despite his determination to be cheerful and to add his quota to the general fund of good-fellowship, he had to summon all his courage to prevent his spirit sinking to its lowest ebb.  It was then he would turn to the thing that lay nearest to hand, his work—­work often so irksome to him that, but for his sense both of obligation and of justice to his employer and his love for Masie, he would have abandoned it altogether.

A possible relief came when through the protests of a customer he had begun to realize the clearer Kling’s deficiencies and had, in consequence, cast about for some plan of helping him to do a larger and more remunerative business.

Several ways by which this could be accomplished were outlined in his mind.  The disorder everywhere apparent in the shop should first come to an end.  The present chaos of tables, chairs, bureaus, and sideboards, heaped higgledy-piggledy one upon the other—­the customers edging their way between lanes of dusty furniture—­must next be abolished.  So must the jumble of glass, china, curios, and lamps.  This completed, color and form would be considered, each taking its proper place in the general scheme.