THE EXCISEMAN'S LIBRARY.
David Ellis did not feel genially disposed toward the historian; and yet when he stood in the kitchen of the Green Dragon, testing the new brew, and saw Hieronymus eagerly watching the process, he could not but be amused. There was something about Hieronymus which was altogether irresistible. He had a power, quite unconscious to himself, of drawing people over to his side. And yet he never tried to win; he was just himself, nothing more and nothing less.
"I am not wishing to pry into the secrets of the profession," he said to David Ellis; "but I do like to see how everything is done."
The exciseman good-naturedly taught him how to test the strength of the beer, and Hieronymus was as pleased as though he had learned some great secret of the universe, or unearthed some long-forgotten fact in history.
"Are you sure the beer comes up to its usual standard?" he asked mischievously, turning to Mrs. Benbow at the same time. "Are you sure it has nothing of the beef-tea element about it? We drink beef-tea by the quart in this establishment. I'm allowed nothing else."
David laughed, and said it was the best beer in the neighborhood; and with that he left the kitchen and went into the ale-room to exchange a few words with Mr. Howells, the proprietor of the rival inn, who always came to the Green Dragon to have his few glasses of beer in peace, free from the stormy remonstrances of his wife. Every one in Little Stretton knew his secret, and respected it. Hieronymus returned to the parlor, where he was supposed to be deep in study.
After a few minutes some one knocked at the door, and David Ellis came in.
"Excuse me troubling you," he said, rather nervously, "but there is a little matter I wanted to ask you about."
"It's about that confounded pastry!" thought Hieronymus, as he drew a chair to the fireside and welcomed the exciseman to it.
David sank down into it, twisted his whip, and looked now at Hieronymus and now at the books which lay scattered on the table. He evidently wished to say something, but he did not know how to begin.