“Their eyes met, for a brief moment, as he handed her two circulars and the fat wrapper-bound bulk of the _East Essex News_. Their eyes met, for the merest fraction of a second, yet nothing could ever be quite the same again. Cost what it might she felt that she must speak, must break the intolerable, unreal silence that had fallen on them. ‘How is your mother’s rheumatism?’ she said.” The author’s labours were cut short by the sudden intrusion of a maidservant. “A gentleman to see you, sir,” said the maid, handing a card with the name Caiaphas Dwelf inscribed on it; “says it’s important.” Mellowkent hesitated and yielded; the importance of the visitor’s mission was probably illusory, but he had never met any one with the name Caiaphas before. It would be at least a new experience. Mr. Dwelf was a man of indefinite age; his high, narrow forehead, cold grey eyes, and determined manner bespoke an unflinching purpose. He had a large book under his arm, and there seemed every probability that he had left a package of similar volumes in the hall. He took a seat before it had been offered him, placed the book on the table, and began to address Mellowkent in the manner of an “open letter.” “You are a literary man, the author of several well-known books—” “I am engaged on a book at the present moment—rather busily engaged,” said Mellowkent, pointedly. “Exactly,” said the intruder; “time with you is a commodity of considerable importance. Minutes, even, have their value.” “They have,” agreed Mellowkent, looking at his watch. “That,” said Caiaphas, “is why this book that I am introducing to your notice is not a book that you can afford to be without. _Right Here_ is indispensable for the writing man; it is no ordinary encyclopædia, or I should not trouble to show it to you. It is an inexhaustible mine of concise information—” “On a shelf at my elbow,” said the author, “I have a row of reference books that supply me with all the information I am likely to require.” “Here,” persisted the would-be salesman, “you have it all in one compact volume. No matter what the subject may be which you wish to look up, or the fact you desire to verify, _Right Here_ gives you all that you want to know in the briefest and most enlightening form. Historical reference, for instance; career of John Huss, let us say. Here we are: ‘Huss, John, celebrated religious reformer. Born 1369, burned at Constance 1415. The Emperor Sigismund universally blamed.’” “If he had been burnt in these days every one would have suspected the Suffragettes,” observed Mellowkent. “Poultry-keeping, now,” resumed Caiaphas, “that’s a subject that might crop up in a novel dealing with English country life. Here we have all about it: ‘The Leghorn as egg-producer. Lack of maternal instinct in the Minorca. Gapes in chickens, its cause and cure. Ducklings for the early market, how fattened.’ There, you see, there it all is, nothing lacking.”