"Yes, sir," replied Henry, and at the delicious sound of the flattering "sir" Mr. Pemble endeavoured to tug his laggard moustache. "Mr. Griggs says I'm to have a look round until he is ready," Henry went on, casting a dubious glance at the walls and the thickly-strewn floor. "Oh, that's all right," drawled Mr. Pemble, who now turned his attention to some small parcels that had arrived by the morning's post. In a little while Mr. Griggs appeared, fully clothed, by the addition of a faded black morning coat and a creased white collar. He beckoned Henry into the back-parlour, which served as a sort of office and a general lumber-room. "Sit you down, my lad, and let's see what we have here," he said, pointing to a crazy arm-chair beside an old Pembroke table, on which a broken ink-bottle and some rusty pens lay, together with a muddle of notepaper. The bookseller then turned to a large case of old volumes recently acquired at the sale of a country house, and picking up several of these he flapped the dust from them, puffing and blowing like a walrus. Glancing briefly at the title-pages of the first two, he threw them in a corner with a brief but emphatic "Rubbish!" The next fished forth satisfied him better, and taking up one of his latest catalogues, he showed Henry how to write down the title and description of the book. So he proceeded for a time, initiating the youth in the art of cataloguing, which with Mr. Griggs did not take a particularly exalted form. He eschewed such aids to ready references as alphabetical entry, and was content so long as the principal items of his stock appeared on his printed list, quite irrespective of order or value. These lists, villainously printed, were a source of unfailing amusement to the educated book-buyers into whose hands they fell, for every page contained the most hilarious blunders, whereby the best-known classics assumed new and surprising disguises. Henry took to the simple work eagerly, and displayed far greater interest than his employer did in the books that came to light as the case was gradually emptying. Now and again during the forenoon Mr. Griggs would suddenly disappear from the parlour, as his thoughts reverted to his suffering Dorking, only to return from his visit to the poultry with a gloomy shake of the head.