Now, Eli was a lad with no more ambition than a toad. Being obsessed with that slavish passion one finds in so many of his class to serve a master for a mere competance that would meet his daily expenses, he went about his business with such translucent simplicity and dutiful obedience to his master's will that he worked from six in the morning till seven in the evening with such a zeal that Peter could make no complaint whatever to his energy in keeping shop, while he in turn kept office and watched through the little square hole aforesaid. This place became known as The Die early in the career of Peter--a corruption of the name of Dieman, and perhaps a revealer of his principles. One day, in September, while the fog and smoke hung darkly over the river and everything, a short heavyset man, very plainly dressed, but with an inquisitorial air in his bearing, sauntered into the shop, and looked about as carelessly and indolently as if he were a sojourner come to view, with a curious eye, the accumulation of things as if on display in a museum. The stranger walked about, with his hands in his pockets, through the narrow aisles between ropes, chains, furniture, pictures, old shoes, hats, clothing, saws, hammers, hatchets, and a thousand and one other things piled up, hanging about, swinging here, or perching there. He was so mysterious in his movements that Eli, upon concluding a simple deal with a louting riverman, came timidly up to him in such a condescending manner that the stranger was struck with amusing amazement at the deferential halo that seemed to pervade the shrimp-like head of the clerk. "Anything?" asked Eli, approaching. "Well, I don't know," answered the stranger, his eyes roving about the room. "I just came in to see if you had anything I wanted." Still gazing abstractedly into a far corner where lay deeper piles of junk, he went on, "I guess, though, from the looks of things, I might get anything I want here, from a gimlet to a gibet." Eli stared doubtfully at the man, wondering at his utter lack of concentration on the object sought. In the meantime, Peter was not off his guard at his peephole. He was standing, looking out, rubbing his hands and squinting, in an effort to make out the identity of the man. "Nothing in iron? Nothing in ropes? Nothing in old clothes? Nothing in furniture?" asked Eli. "Don't know just yet," answered the stranger, now with his eyes cast down upon the docile but ever guardful Eli. "What then?" asked Eli, still pursuing his questioning, and still indecisive as to how to approach this uncommunicative customer. "I am just looking," answered the stranger, vacantly. "Oh, well--just to see if I can see anything of benefit that I might carry off."