Ray knew their imprint and its relative value better than the Midland bookseller, stationer, and music-dealer; and now, as he sat in the junior partner’s neat little den, with the letter of introduction in his hand, it seemed to him such a crazy thing to think of having his book brought out by them that he decided not to say anything about it, but to keep to that character of literary newspaper man which his friend gave him in his rather florid letter. He had leisure enough to make this decision and unmake it several times while he was waiting for Mr. Brandreth to come. It was so early that, with all the delays Ray had forced, it was still only a little after nine, and no one came in for a quarter of an hour. The clerks stood about and chatted together. The bookkeepers, in their high-railed enclosure, were opening their ledgers under the shaded gas-burners that helped out the twilight there. Ray could see his unknown street friend scanning the books on the upper shelf and moving his person from side to side, and letting his cane rise and fall behind him as if he were humming to himself and keeping time to the tune. VIII. The distant street door opened at last, and a gentleman came in. His entrance caused an indefinite sensation in the clerks, such as we all feel in the presence of the man who pays our wages. At the sound of his step, Ray’s street friend turned about from his shelf, but without offering to leave it. “Ah, good-morning, good-morning!” he called out; and the other called back, “Ah, good-morning, Mr. Kane!” and pushed on up towards a door near that of Ray’s retreat. A clerk stopped him, and after a moment’s parley he came in upon the young fellow. He was a man of fifty-five or sixty, with whiskers slightly frosted, and some puckers and wrinkles about his temples and at the corners of his mouth, and a sort of withered bloom in his cheeks, something like the hardy self-preservation of the late-hanging apple that people call a frozen-thaw. He was a thin man, who seemed once to have been stouter; he had a gentle presence and a somewhat careworn look. “Mr. Brandreth?” Ray said, rising. “No,” said the other; “Mr. Chapley.” “Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Ray. “They showed me into Mr. Brandreth’s room, and I thought”-- “It’s quite right, quite right,” said Mr. Chapley. “Mr. Brandreth will be in almost any moment if you wish to see him personally.” Mr. Chapley glanced at the parcel in Ray’s hand. “Oh no; I have a letter for the firm,” and Ray gave it to Mr. Chapley, who read it through and then offered his hand, and said he was glad to meet Mr. Ray. He asked some questions of commonplace friendliness about his correspondent, and he said, with the kind of melancholy which seemed characteristic of him: “So you have come to take a hand in the great game here. Well, if there is anything I can do to serve you, I shall be very glad.”