“I have not a tithe of that great sum among the whole of my worldly possessions,” said the old man forlornly.
“Nor I,” said Dodson. “I have hardly a red cent. laid by, because you know I have now to support my people; but if I could lay my hands at this moment on two hundred pounds, poor Luney’s book should be through the press before he hears his name called.”
“Come into the shop,” said the old man feebly, “and tell me if you think some of the venerable tomes on the shelves might produce that—that large sum.”
Dodson entered the shop and the old man struck a match and lit the gas. A very brief examination of what Dodson conceived to be a useless mass of lumber, for all the volumes were very black, faded, dusty, and stained with time, sufficed to enable him to form a verdict.
“I don’t suppose,” said he with a candour which numbed the old man’s veins, “the whole lot together would fetch two hundred pence. I never saw such a collection—never!”
“I must pray for a miracle to happen again,” said the old man. “One happened to us on a day.”
“Did it indeed?” said Dodson.
“Yes,” said the old man. “The great Achilles was threatened with expulsion from his little room. Unless I, his custodian, could obtain the sum of twenty pounds by a certain day, it was ordained that he should be cast out into the streets of the great city. Yet on the eve of that day, when all hope had been abandoned, a man out of the street, a street-person, walked into this shop, looked upon all these shelves, and took down one after another of these venerable tomes, and paying over to me the sum of two hundred pounds, walked out of the shop with one of these old volumes in his care.”
“What was the old volume?” said Dodson, with an air of keen interest.
“A Shakespeare of the first folio,” said the old man.