'Will you be seated, Mr. Macpherson? In what can I serve you?'
He placed the three volumes, backs upward, on my table.
'Are you interested at all in first editions, Mr. Webster?'
'It is the one thing I am interested in,' I replied; 'but unfortunately they often run into a lot of money.'
'That is true,' said Macpherson sympathetically, 'and I have here three books, one of which is an exemplification of what you say. This one costs a hundred pounds. The last copy that was sold by auction in London brought a hundred and twenty-three pounds. This next one is forty pounds, and the third ten pounds. At these prices I am certain you could not duplicate three such treasures in any book shop in Britain.'
I examined them critically, and saw at once that what he said was true. He was still standing on the opposite side of the table.
'Please take a chair, Mr. Macpherson. Do you mean to say you go round London with a hundred and fifty pounds worth of goods under your arm in this careless way?'
The young man laughed.
'I run very little risk, Mr. Webster. I don't suppose anyone I meet imagines for a moment there is more under my arm than perhaps a trio of volumes I have picked up in the fourpenny box to take home with me.'
I lingered over the volume for which he asked a hundred pounds, then said, looking across at him:—