"Let's have a look at it."

Paul regarded him suspiciously; but there was kindliness in the
twinkling glance. He handed him the sorry apology for a book.

Barney Bill turned it over. 'Why, said he, "it ain't got no
beginning and no end. It's all middle. 'Kenilworth.' Do yer like
it?"

"Ay!" said Paul. "It's foine."

"Who do yer think wrote it?"

As both cover and a hundred pages at the beginning, including the
title-page, to say nothing of a hundred pages at the end, were
missing, Paul had no clue to the authorship.

"Dunno," said he.

"Sir Walter Scott."

Paul jumped to his feet. Sir Walter Scott, he knew not why or how,
was one of those bright names that starred in his historical
darkness, like Caesar and Napoleon and Ridley and Latimer and W. G.
Grace.

"Tha' art sure? Sir Water Scott?"

The shock of meeting Sir Walter in the flesh could not have been
greater. The man nodded. "Think I'd tell yer a lie? I do a bit of