“Yes,” said Dodson, “two hundred pounds is a lot of money; but it will have to be found if poor Luney is to hold his book in his hands before he dies.” “I have not a tithe of that great sum among the whole of my worldly possessions,” said the old man forlornly. “Nor I,” said Dodson. “I have hardly a red cent. laid by, because you know I have now to support my people; but if I could lay my hands at this moment on two hundred pounds, poor Luney’s book should be through the press before he hears his name called.” “Come into the shop,” said the old man feebly, “and tell me if you think some of the venerable tomes on the shelves might produce that--that large sum.” Dodson entered the shop and the old man struck a match and lit the gas. A very brief examination of what Dodson conceived to be a useless mass of lumber, for all the volumes were very black, faded, dusty, and stained with time, sufficed to enable him to form a verdict. “I don’t suppose,” said he with a candour which numbed the old man’s veins, “the whole lot together would fetch two hundred pence. I never saw such a collection--never!” “I must pray for a miracle to happen again,” said the old man. “One happened to us on a day.” “Did it indeed?” said Dodson. “Yes,” said the old man. “The great Achilles was threatened with expulsion from his little room. Unless I, his custodian, could obtain the sum of twenty pounds by a certain day, it was ordained that he should be cast out into the streets of the great city. Yet on the eve of that day, when all hope had been abandoned, a man out of the street, a street-person, walked into this shop, looked upon all these shelves, and took down one after another of these venerable tomes, and paying over to me the sum of two hundred pounds, walked out of the shop with one of these old volumes in his care.” “What was the old volume?” said Dodson, with an air of keen interest. “A Shakespeare of the first folio,” said the old man. Dodson gave a low whistle. “Oh, was it?” he said. “Then I should think that that street-person was not such a bad judge after all.” James Dodson turned his attention again to the shelves, in which were many gaps, with a livelier curiosity. “There don’t appear to be many first-folio Shakespeares left now,” he said in a tone of keen disappointment. “But it is no good supposing that there would be; these things have been pretty well gone through. Some street-person has picked all the pearls these many years, I expect. All that is left is hardly worth carting away. As I say, all that remains on your shelves, old man, would barely fetch two hundred pence.” “Can we do nothing to obtain the sum of two hundred pounds?” said the old man. “Surely in this extremity a miracle must happen to us again.”