"Wait till you hear what I want. I'm not going to ask you to make catalogues, or stand behind the counter, or," he added almost humbly, "to do anything a gentleman doesn't do." He looked round the room. The materials of the furnishing were cheap; but Keith had appeased his sense of beauty in the simplicity of the forms and the broad harmony of the colours. Isaac was impressed and a little disheartened by the refinement of his surroundings, a refinement that might be fatal to his enterprise. "You shall 'ave your own private room fitted up on the first floor, with a writing table, and a swivel chair. You needn't come into contact with customers at all. All I want is to 'ave you on the spot to refer to. I want you to give me the use of those brains of yours. Practically you'd be a sleeping partner; but we should 'alve profits from the first." "Thanks--thanks" (his voice seemed to choke him)--"it's awfully good and--and generous of you. But I can't." "Why not?" "I've about fifteen reasons. One's enough. I don't like the business, and I won't have anything to do with it." "You--don't--like--the business?" said Isaac, with the air of considering an entirely new proposition. "No. I don't like it." "I am going to raise the tone of the business. That's wot I want you for. To raise the tone of the business." "I should have to raise the tone of the British public first." "Well--an intelligent bookseller has a good deal of influence with customers; and you with your reputation, there's nothing you couldn't do. You could make the business anything you chose. In a few years we should be at the very head of the trade. I don't deny that the house has been going down. There's been considerable depression. Still, I should be in a very different position now, Keith, if you hadn't left me. And in the second-hand department--_your_ department--there are still enormous--e_nor_mous--profits to be made." "That's precisely why I object to my department, as you call it. I don't approve of those enormous profits." "Now look 'ere. Let's have a quiet talk. We never have 'ad, for you were always so violent. If you'd stated your objections to me in a quiet reasonable manner, there'd never have been any misunderstanding. Supposing you explain why you object to those profits." "I object, because in nine cases out of ten they're got by trading on another person's ignorance." "Of course they are. Why not? If he's ignorant, it's only fair he should pay for his ignorance; and if I'm an expert, it's fair I should get an expert's profits. It's all a question of buying and selling. He can't sell what he hasn't got; and I can't sell what I haven't got. Supposing I've got knowledge that he hasn't--if I can't make a profit out of _that_, what can I make a profit out of?" "I can't say. My own experience of the business was unfortunate. It struck me, if you remember, that some of your profits meant uncommonly sharp practice."