But he never did exert it. Surrounded by wares
whose very appearance was a venal solicitation, he never hinted by so
much as the turn of a phrase that there was anything about him to be
bought. And after what had passed between them, they felt that to hint
it themselves--to him--would have been the last indelicacy. If they
ever asked the price of a book it was to propitiate the grim grizzled
fellow, so like a Methodist parson, who glared at them from the
counter.
They kept their discovery to themselves, as if it had been something
too precious to be handled, as if its charm, the poetry, the pathos of
it must escape under discussion. But any of them who did compare notes
agreed that their first idea had been that the shop was absurdly too
big for the young man; their next that the young man was too big for
the shop, miles, oh miles too big for it; their final impression being
the tragedy of the disproportion, the misfit. Then, sadly, with
lowered voices, they admitted that he had one flaw; when the poor
fellow got excited, don't you know, he sometimes dropt--no--no, he
skipped--his aitches. It didn't happen often, but they felt it
terrible that it should happen at all--to him. They touched it
tenderly; if it was not exactly part of his poetry it was part of his
pathos. The shop was responsible for it. He ought never, never to have
been there.
And yet, bad as it was, they felt that he must be consoled, sustained
by what he knew about himself, what it was inconceivable that he
should not know.
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