Such faces as one sees.

The little man fingering the meat must have squatted before the fire in innumerable lodging-houses, and heard and seen and known so much that it seems to utter itself even volubly from dark eyes, loose lips, as he fingers the meat silently, his face sad as a poet's, and never a song sung.

Shawled women carry babies with purple eyelids; boys stand at street corners; girls look across the road--rude illustrations, pictures in a book whose pages we turn over and over as if we should at last find what we look for.

Every face, every shop, bedroom window, public-house, and dark square is a picture feverishly turned--in search of what?
It is the same with books.

What do we seek through millions of pages?
Still hopefully turning the pages--oh, here is Jacob's room.
He sat at the table reading the Globe.