A skinny trembling hand was offering him a greenish newspaper.

"Terrible cold wind for the time o' year!"

A very aged man in black-rimmed spectacles, with a distended nose and long upper lip and chin, was tentatively fumbling out change for sixpence.

"I seem to know your face," said Hilary.

"Oh dear, yes. You deals with this 'ere shop--the tobacco department. I've often seen you when you've a-been agoin' in. Sometimes you has the Pell Mell off o' this man here." He jerked his head a trifle to the left, where a younger man was standing armed with a sheaf of whiter papers. In that gesture were years of envy, heart-burning, and sense of wrong. 'That's my paper,' it seemed to say, 'by all the rights of man; and that low-class fellow sellin' it, takin' away my profits!'

"I sells this 'ere Westminister. I reads it on Sundays--it's a gentleman's paper, 'igh-class paper--notwithstandin' of its politics. But, Lor', sir, with this 'ere man a-sellin' the Pell Mell"--lowering his voice, he invited Hilary to confidence--"so many o' the gentry takes that; an' there ain't too many o' the gentry about 'ere--I mean, not o' the real gentry--that I can afford to 'ave 'em took away from me."

Hilary, who had stopped to listen out of delicacy, had a flash of recollection. "You live in Hound Street?"

The old man answered eagerly: "Oh dear! Yes, sir--No. 1, name of Creed. You're the gentleman where the young person goes for to copy of a book!"