As for himself--He looked round the little back shop, and tried to recall the fifty years he had spent there, the books he had bought and sold, the money which had slipped through his fingers, the friends who had come and gone.

Why, as for the books, he seemed to remember them every one--his joy in the purchase, his pride in possession, and his grief at letting them go.

All the friends gone before him, his trade sunk to nothing.
"Yet," he murmured, "I thought it would last my time." But the clock struck six.

It was his tea-time.

He rose mechanically, and went upstairs to Iris..