It lacked about an hour of noon, when, armed with permission to bid as high as five pounds for the Evershot chronicle, Wolf entered for the second time the establishment of Mr. John Malakite.

The old man received him without the remotest trace of the emotion of the preceding day. He agreed so quickly to accept Mr. Urquhart’s offer, that Wolf felt a little ashamed of his own skill as a business intermediary. But he was glad to escape the tedium of haggling, and was preparing to bid the bookseller farewell, when the man asked in a blank and neutral voice, as if the proposal were a mechanical form of politeness, “Will you come upstairs with me, Mr. Solent, and have a glass of something?”