“Why, it isn't a story,” said Lemuel, in simple surprise. “No?” asked Mr. Evans. “I thought it must be. Most of the young gentlemen who run the elevators I travel in read stories. Do you like this kind of reading?” Lemuel reflected, and then he said he thought you ought to find out about such things if you got a chance. “Yes,” said the editor musingly, “I suppose one oughtn't to throw any sort of chance away. But you're sure you don't prefer the novels? You'll excuse my asking you?” “Oh, perfectly excusable,” said Lemuel. He added that he liked a good novel too, when he could get hold of it. “You must come to my room some day, and see if you can't get hold of one there. Or if you prefer metaphysics, I've got shelves full that you're welcome to. I suppose,” he added, “you hadn't been in Boston a great while when I met you that day?” “No,” said Lemuel, dropping his head again, “I had just come.” As if he saw that something painful lurked under the remembrance of the time for Lemuel the editor desisted. The next morning he stopped on his way to breakfast with some books which he handed to Lemuel. “Don't feel at all obliged to read them,” he said, “because I lend them to you. They won't be of the least use to you, if you do so.” “I guess that anything you like will be worth reading,” said Lemuel, flattered by the trouble so chief a boarder as Mr. Evans had taken with him. “Not if they supplied a want you didn't feel. You seem to be fond of books, and after a while you'll be wanting to lend them yourself. I'll give you a little hint that I'm too old to profit by: remember that you can lend a person more books in a day than he can read in a week.” His laugh kept Lemuel shy of him still, in spite of a willingness that the editor showed for their better acquaintance. He seemed to wish to know about Lemuel, particularly since he had recognised the pursuer of the horse-car in him, and this made Lemuel close up the more. He would have liked to talk with him about the books Evans had lent him. But when the editor stopped at the office door, where Lemuel sat reading one of them, and asked him what he thought of it, the boy felt that somehow it was not exactly his opinion that Mr. Evans was getting at; and this sense of being inspected and arranged in another's mind, though he could not formulate the operation in his own, somehow wounded and repelled him. It was not that the editor ever said anything that was not kind and friendly; he was always doing kind and friendly things, and he appeared to take a real interest in Lemuel. At the end of the first week after Lemuel had added the head waitership to his other duties, Evans stopped in going out of the dining-room and put a dollar in his hand. “What is it for?” asked Lemuel. “For? Really, I don't know. It must be tribute-money,” said the editor in surprise, but with a rising curiosity. “I never know what it's for.”