For a second-hand bookseller who respects himself must present an exterior which has something of faded splendor, of worn paint and shabbiness.

Within the shop, books line the walls and cumber the floor.

There are an outer and an inner shop; in the former a small table stands among the books, at which Mr.
James, the assistant, is always at work cataloguing, when he is not tying up parcels; sometimes even with gum and paste repairing the slighter ravages of time--foxed bindings and close-cut margins no man can repair.

In the latter, which is Mr.Emblem's sanctum, there are chairs and a table, also covered with books, a writing-desk, a small safe, and a glass case, wherein are secured the more costly books in stock.

Emblem's, as must be confessed, is no longer quite what it was in former days; twenty, thirty, or forty years ago that glass case was filled with precious treasures.