Even to Merry, who had never before visited her friends on Peoria Street just off Maxwell Street, the shop of Weston was something of a shock. It was nothing more than a hollow shell of a building with a great heap of second-hand goods of all sorts piled in one corner. Not a shelf, counter or table adorned this bleak interior. The plaster was cracked, the walls threatening to fall.

“I sell all in the street,” he explained in answer to their looks of astonishment. With a wave of his hand he indicated rough board counters where a miscellaneous assortment of human beings were pawing over a stock in trade as varied as themselves.

Now and again one would hold up an article in one hand, a coin in the other, and a bargain was speedily made.
142

“I don’t see how he lives,” Petite Jeanne whispered.

“He’s been doing this for twenty years, and he’s not bankrupt yet,” Merry whispered back.

They were led next to the shop of Kay King. This boasted of some little magnificence. There were shelves and tables and one glass showcase. Since his principal stock was composed of second-hand books, the wall was lined with them.

“A curious place for a book store, this Maxwell Street,” Dan Baker mused.

“I don’t do so badly,” Kay King smiled. “The poor wish to read. And here for a nickel, a dime, a quarter, I sell them a lamp to their feet, a light to their pathway.”

“Truly a missionary enterprise in a city wilderness,” the gentle old man murmured.

As for Petite Jeanne, her eyes had roamed up and down the dusty rows of books and had come to rest at last upon a badly hung pair of portieres at the back of the room.

“That,” she told herself, “is where he sleeps when the day is done, a dark and dingy hole.
143

“And yet,” she mused, “who can help admiring him? Here in his dingy little world he is master of his own destiny. While others who sell books march down each morning to punch a clock and remain bowing and scraping, saying ‘Yes mam’ this and ‘Yes mam’ that to females who think themselves superior beings, he moves happily among his own books selling when and as he chooses.”

Her reflections were broken off by a word from Kay King himself.

“There’s a story in every one.” He nodded toward the row of trunks and bags they had come to inspect.

“Little does one dream as he packs his trunk for a journey that he may never see that trunk again. Sad as it may seem, this is often the case.

“So, all unconscious of curious prying eyes, we tuck the very stories of our lives away in our trunks and watch them go speeding away in a motor van.”

“How?” Petite Jeanne asked.
144

“How? Look at this. Here is one I purchased some time ago.” He swung a large, strongly built wardrobe trunk about, threw it open and produced a bundle of letters. “This,” he explained, “is a young man. These letters are from his mother. And these,” he produced another packet, “are from other women. Still others are from his pals. They tell his story. And what a story! Bright, well educated, from a good family. But oh, such a rotter! He betrays h............