"Guv'nor's upstairs, Mr. Joseph, taking of his tea with Miss Iris,"
replied Mr. James, not at all offended by the allusion to his
craftiness. Who should resemble the fox if not the second-hand
bookseller? In no trade, perhaps, can the truly admirable qualities of
that animal--his patience, his subtlety and craft, his pertinacity,
his sagacity--be illustrated more to advantage. Mr. James felt a glow
of virtue--would that he could grow daily and hourly, and more and
more toward the perfect fox. Then, indeed, and not till then would he
be able to live truly up to his second-hand books.

"Having tea with Iris; well--"

The speaker looked as if it required some effort to receive this
statement with resignation.

"He always does at six o'clock. Why shouldn't he?" asked Mr. James.

"Because, James, he spends the time in cockering up that gal whom he's
ruined and spoiled--him and the old nigger between them--so that her
mind is poisoned against her lawful relations, and nothing will
content her but coming into all the old man's money, instead of going
share and share alike, as a cousin should, and especially a
she-cousin, while there's a biscuit left in the locker and a drop of
rum in the cask."

"Ah!" said Mr. James with a touch of sympathy, called forth, perhaps,
by mention of the rum, which is a favorite drink with second-hand
booksellers' assistants.

"Nothing too good for her," the other went on; "the best of education,