insides?"

"Without the insides?"

"Yes," I said, "the binding will trim up my table just as well without
the insides."

I thought he looked at me a little suspiciously, but he was evidently
satisfied by my expression of countenance, for he answered promptly:

"Oh, but you want the insides. That's what the books are for. The
bindings are never sold alone."

He then went on to tell me the prices and terms of payment, until it
really seemed that it would be cheaper to buy the books than to let him
carry them away again. Harriet stood in the doorway behind him frowning
and evidently trying to catch my eye. But I kept my face turned aside so
that I could not see her signal of distress and my eyes fixed on the
young man Dixon. It was as good as a play. Harriet there,
serious-minded, thinking I was being befooled, and the agent thinking he
was befooling me, and I, thinking I was befooling both of them--and all
of us wrong. It was very like life wherever you find it.

Finally, I took the book which he had been urging upon me, at which
Harriet coughed meaningly to attract my attention. She knew the danger
when I really got my hands on a book. But I made up as innocent as a
child. I opened the book almost at random--and it was as though, walking
down a strange road, I had come upon an old tried friend not seen before
in years. For there on the page before me I read: