In the front of the cave, to one side, was a hoistway, where bales and boxes were drawn up from the cellar or swung twisting and twirling to the lofts above. Amidships the place was strewn with small tubs, matting-covered bales and boxes, coils of bright new rope, and odd-looking packages of a hundred sorts, all of them with gaping wounds in their envelopes, or otherwise having their pristine integrity wounded. From this it was not difficult to guess that these were samples of merchandise. Most of them gave forth odors upon the air, odors ranging from the purely aromatic, suggestive of Oriental fancies or tropic dreams of spice, to the positively offensive--the latter varieties predominating. [Illustration] But certain objects upon a long table were so peculiar in appearance that the visitors could not pass them by with a mere glance of wonder. They looked like small leather pies, badly warped in the baking. A clerk in his shirt sleeves, with his straw hat on one side of his head, whistled as he cut into these, revealing a livid interior, the color of half-cooked veal, which he inspected with care. Eustace was moved to positive curiosity. "What are they?" he inquired of the clerk, pride mingling with disgust in his tone, as he caught a smell like unto the smell which might arise from raw smoked salmon that had lain three days in the sun. "Central American," responded the clerk, with brevity, and resumed his whistling of "My name is Jake Keyser, I was born in Spring Garden; To make me a preacher my father did try." "Central American _what_?" pursued the inquirer. "_Rubber!_" said the clerk, with a scorn so deep and far beyond expression that the combined pride of the Dolphs and the Des Anges wilted into silence for the moment. As they went on toward the rear office, while the clerk gayly whistled the notes of "It's no use a-blowing, for I am a hard 'un-- I'm bound to be a butcher, by heavens, or die!" Eustace recovered sufficiently to demand of his father: "I say, sir, shall I have to handle that damned stuff?" "Hush!" said his senior; "here's Mr. Van Riper." Mr. Van Riper came to the office door to welcome them, with his thin face set in the form of a smile. "Ah!" he said, "here's the young man, is he? Fine big fellow, Dolph. Well, sir, so you are going to embrace a mercantile career, are you? That's what they call it in these fine days, Dolph." "I am going to try to, sir," replied the young man. "He will, Van Riper," put in his father, hastily; "he'll like it as soon as he gets used to it--I know he will."