A week later, passing the little street, I thought I would go in and tell him how splendidly the new boots fitted.  But when I came to where his shop had been, his name was gone.  Still there, in the window, were the slim pumps, the patent leathers with cloth tops, the sooty riding boots.

I went in, very much disturbed.  In the two little shops—­again made into one—­was a young man with an English face.

“Mr. Gessler in?” I said.

He gave me a strange, ingratiating look.

“No, sir,” he said, “no.  But we can attend to anything with pleasure.  We’ve taken the shop over.  You’ve seen our name, no doubt, next door.  We make for some very good people.”

“Yes, yes,” I said; “but Mr. Gessler?”

“Oh!” he answered; “dead.”

“Dead!  But I only received these boots from him last Wednesday week.”

“Ah!” he said; “a shockin’ go.  Poor old man starved ’imself.”

“Good God!”

“Slow starvation, the doctor called it!  You see he went to work in such a way!  Would keep the shop on; wouldn’t have a soul touch his boots except himself.  When he got an order, it took him such a time.  People won’t wait.  He lost everybody.  And there he’d sit, goin’ on and on—­I will say that for him—­not a man in London made a better boot!  But look at the competition!  He never advertised!  Would ’ave the best leather, too, and do it all ’imself.  Well, there it is.  What could you expect with his ideas?”

“But starvation—!”

“That may be a bit flowery, as the sayin’ is—­but I know myself he was sittin’ over his boots day and night, to the very last.  You see I used to watch him.  Never gave ’imself time to eat; never had a penny in the house.  All went in rent and leather.  How he lived so long I don’t know.  He regular let his fire go out.  He was a character.  But he made good boots.”

“Yes,” I said, “he made good boots.”

And I turned and went out quickly, for I did not want that youth to know that I could hardly see.

THE TRIUMPH OF NIGHT

BY EDITH WHARTON

This is a mystery plot in which the supernatural furnishes the interest.  In dealing with the supernatural Mrs. Wharton does not allow it to become horrible or grotesque.  She secures plausibility by having for its leading characters practical business men—­not a woman, hysterical or otherwise, really appears—­and by placing them in a perfectly conventional setting.  The apparition is not accompanied by blood stains, shroud, or uncanny noises.  Sometimes the writer of the supernatural feels that he must explain his mystery by material agencies.  The effect is to disappoint the reader who has yielded himself to the conditions imposed by the author, and is willing, for the time at least, to believe in ghosts.  Mrs. Wharton makes no such mistake.  She does not spoil the effect by commonplace explanation.