handicraft, had been washed all over with white. At the level of
labour they were broken in many places. Somehow or other, the whole
reminded me of Albert Durer's "Melencholia."

Seeing I was interested in looking about his shop, my new
friend--for I could not help feeling that we should be friends
before all was over, and so began to count him one already--resumed
the conversation. He had never taken up the dropped thread of it
before.

"Yes, sir," he said; "the owners of the place little thought it
would come to this--the deals growing into a coffin there on the
spot where the grand dinner was laid for them and their guests! But
there is another thing about it that is odder still; my son is the
last male"--

Here he stopped suddenly, and his face grew very red. As suddenly he
resumed--

"I'm not a gentleman, sir; but I will tell the truth. Curse it!--I
beg your pardon, sir,"--and here the old smile--"I don't think I got
that from THEIR side of the house.--My son's NOT the last male
descendant."

Here followed another pause.

As to the imprecation, I knew better than to take any notice of a
mere expression of excitement under a sense of some injury with
which I was not yet acquainted. If I could get his feelings right in
regard to other and more important things, a reform in that matter