HE

E is a hideous old man, ragged and unclean, whom the frequenters of the Toronto Reference Library know for a strange figure in the reading room, where he often hunts with dirty fingers through the pages of a classical dictionary. He breathes hoarsely with some disease of the throat, and disturbs the whole room with a dry cough repeated at irritating intervals. But he never raises his head there, and the nervous patrons of the place, scowling across the tables at him, see only a greasy muss of hair and beard tangled in discoloured grey.

On the streets his face is more familiar-keen eyes, (the white of them a putrid yellow) scowling sidelong at the curiosity of the passer-by; a complexion unhealthily pitted with black. spots, as if of soot; for the rest, coarse hair, as coarse as the beard of a cocoanut. He wears always an old plug hat, faded to the colour of a felt. A frayed ulster is held with a single button on his chest, and he swings one arm insanely as he walks.

That is the Professor," proprietor of an old bookshop among the Jews on Queen street-to whom mere chance introduced me on a winter's evening. I was looking for an edition of Steele's "Tatler" to match some old volumes of the "Spectator" which I had found in a book store on York street. The Professor's window promised just such another find. I opened his door noisily. There was no counter in his shop. He was reading at a small pine table, and he looked up even with alarm when I came in to him. That face, scowling in the lamplight, was no tradesman's welcome. The place was stifling with

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could just see the old grey face in the shadow, and the glitter of his eyes. The chimney of the lamp was smoked, and the light poor. But I could guess that he was scrutinizing me with some suspicion. I waited for him to speak.

one.

"You wanted a Steele," he said, turning to the books. "Well, I haven't But" and he dragged his table over noisily to set the lamp upon it-"look for yourself. You may find something here." I turned to the shelves. He fingered his beard for a moment's silence Here while I read the nearest titles. were some old Latin texts bound in blackened mahogany and tarnished gold -superseded sciences, philosophies and histories, last century's treatises on metaphysics, some authors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and a miscellany of printed waste. Popular literature had apparently no place in his stock.