"But you think you have a right to sell it, as it was brought for you and you only?" "Oh yes, of course I do," he answered; "and I want a bob to-day most fearfully. We've got a half-holiday, and it's the Yorkshire match at the Oval." "You think your father would like to know that you are raising money on a schoolbook to go to a cricket match?" I asked. "But I've done with it," he repeated. "You think your father would like to know? That is the whole point. If you can assure me that he would not mind your selling the school-book like this just for an afternoon's pleasure, I will give you a shilling for it at once." He thought a little while and shuffled his feet, and his fine face clouded. "No," he said at last, "he wouldn't like it," and he put out his hand to take the book back. "How much pocket-money do you get?" I asked, as I gave it to him. "Threepence a week," he said. "Well," I said, "I will lend you the shilling, and you can pay me back as soon as it is convenient." "Oh, I say, how frightfully decent of you!" he exclaimed. So I handed him the shilling, and he crammed the book into his pocket and rushed off, being joined just outside by a smaller boy whom I guessed to be Estabrook II. Estabrook! Now you see the conjunction of ideas, for one of my closest companions at school forty years ago had been an Estabrook, and it is not a common name. Could this boy, I wondered, be the son of my old friend? I had not long to wait to discover, for an unexpected tip from an uncle made it possible for him to discharge his debt quickly, and he was back within a week with the shilling in his hand. Bemerton sent him upstairs to me, after having explained that I was not really the bookseller, but an eccentric gentleman masquerading as such; and I asked him at once about his father, and soon ascertained that it was really my old school-fellow; and so I gave Kenneth, which was the debtor's name, a message to the effect that I should give myself the pleasure of calling upon him next Sunday afternoon. We agreed that nothing should be said as to the circumstances under which Kenneth and I had originally met: all we were to say was that we had come upon each other accidentally in Bemerton's. This harmless compact of secrecy made, as must so often have been the case, a very firm foundation of our friendship--a friendship which led to some very agreeable afternoons. But see how it came about. The Rev. Ephraim Pye-Lipwood, tiring of horses, buys a motor-car of one of his parishioners. He goes for his first ride and forgets to put on enough wraps. He catches a cold, which develops into double pneumonia, and he dies. His widow wishes to sell his library, and asks a friend to recommend a good dealer. The friend recommends Mr. Joseph Bemerton of Westminster, and Mr. Bemerton arranges to go down by the 10.7 from Victoria on Tuesday.