For the last ten years, however, it had done miscellaneous duty as warder of Old Man Wheeler's lumber-room.

If a key could be supposed to peep through a keyhole, and speculate on the nature of the service it was rendering to humanity, in keeping safe the contents of the room into which it gazed, this key might have indulged in fine conjectures, and have passed its lifetime in a state of chronic bewilderment.

Each time that the door of this old storehouse opened, it opened to admit some new, strange, nondescript article, bearing no relation to any thing that had preceded it.

"Old Man Wheeler" added to all his other eccentricities a most eccentric way of collecting his debts.
He had dealings of one sort or another with everybody.

He drove hard bargains, and was inexorable as to dates.