The shopman smiled. "Not much in that way, sir; but anything to
enlighten the working classes. This is Professor Long's great work upon
limpets, two vols. post octavo. The Mayor has just presented it to the
library of the institute. I was cutting the leaves when you came in."

"Very prudent in you, sir. If limpets were but able to read printed
character in the English tongue, this work would have more interest for
them than the ablest investigations upon the political and social history
of man. But," added the Comedian, shaking his head mournfully, "the
human species is not testaceous; and what the history of man might be to
a limpet, the history of limpets is to a man." So saying, Mr. Waife
bought a sheet of cardboard and some gilt foil, relifted his hat, and
walked out.

The shopman scratched his head thoughtfully; he glanced from his window
at the form of the receding stranger, and mechanically resumed the task
of cutting those leaves, which, had the volumes reached the shelves of
the library uncut, would have so remained to the crack of doom.

Mike Callaghan now came in sight, striding fast; "Mr. Mayor sends his
love--bother-o'-me--his respex; and will be happy to see your honour."

In three minutes more the Comedian was seated in a little parlour that
adjoined Mr. Hartopp's counting-house,--Mr. Hartopp seated also, vis-a-
vis. The Mayor had one of those countenances upon which good-nature
throws a sunshine softer than Claude ever shed upon canvas. Josiah
Hartopp had risen in life by little other art than that of quiet
kindliness. As a boy at school, he had been ever ready to do a good turn
to his school-fellows; and his school-fellows at last formed themselves