"A sweet little edition," he said, examining the text, "but small print. I have left my glasses at home. Would you very kindly indicate to me the nature of its contents, sir?" I read a few lines aloud to him--poetry. "I don't know it," I confessed. "Poetry is not much in my line. Let me look at the title-page. Ah--Robert Southey." "I rather thought it was Southey," said Mr. Baxter immediately. "I fancy you are more widely read than I am," I remarked. "I make a point of reading aloud a passage out of one of my books every day, sir. I acquired the habit under the late Archdeacon. We read together constantly. He had very definite views on the value of reading. 'A man with books about him,' he used to say, 'is a man surrounded by friends far more interesting and distinguished than any he is likely to meet when he dines with the Bishop. A man with a library of his own, however small, is at once a capitalist who can never go bankrupt and an aristocrat who moves in circles to which the common herd cannot penetrate. In other words, a man with a library is a man respected!' That was why I founded my own, sir. The Archdeacon himself contributed the first few volumes." "Is it a large library?" I asked, glancing furtively at my wrist-watch. "No, sir; of very modest dimensions. But it is sufficiently large to be utilized by nearly all my friends." "You lend them books, then?" "Oh, no, sir. I would not do that. My books are everything to me--and you know what book-borrowers are! My friends are welcome to tap my literary resources, but it must be through me as medium." "I don't quite understand," I said, noting out of the corner of my eye that Mr. Pettigrew, the druggist next door, had emerged from behind the carved wooden screen which masks the mysteries of his dispensing department from the layman's eye, and was now visible through the shop window, busy with white paper and sealing-wax. "When a seeker after knowledge calls upon me," explained the indefatigable Mr. Baxter, "I select from my library the appropriate volume and read, or recite, to him such passages as appear to me most applicable to his case. In this way I ensure the safety and cleanliness of my literary property-- "So here you are! I thought so. Have you been buying another of those dirty things?" A small, alert, slightly shrewish girl of about fifteen had suddenly appeared from nowhere, and was now transfixing my flinching companion with the eye of the Ancient Mariner. "Only fourpence, my dear," replied Mr. Baxter deferentially. "That's right. Throw money about!" said the young lady. "Have you got fourpence?" she added, with a slight softening of manner. "Well, to be exact, I rather think all I have at the moment is threepence." The Ancient Mariner produced a penny.