women and children, in all conditions of wear and tear, from a riverman's oiled coat, with greasy spots upon it and burned holes in many places in it, to a worn out pair of infantine shoes. Here may be found a hecatomb of articles of the household, of the store, of the office, of the hotel, of the church, of the school, of the cemetery, of the railway yards, of the building of justice, of jail, of penitentiary—from every place, almost—all telling a tale of grandeur, of poverty, of happiness, of misery; of pride, of modesty, of virtue; of honor, of dishonor; of sickness, pain and death.

The keeper of this shop, at this period in this narrative, was Peter Dieman—a red-jowled, pig-eyed, sharp-nosed, dirty-mouthed, frowsy-headed, big-bellied American, whose ancestry may be determined by his name. A glance into his gloomy place was enough to convince the most unobserving that he was specially adapted to his established trade of buying and selling all manner of second-hand goods, ranging in value from a penny to the enormous sum of one great American Eagle; and seldom, if ever, did anything go above the latter figure, when he was the purchaser; but when he was the seller—that was different.

In the rear of the darksome room, on the ground floor, there was a little cubby-hole built around a little window that opened on the rear street. The window was so begrimed with dust and cobwebs that it was necessary, even on the brightest days, to keep a sixteen candle power incandescent globe going continually to furnish sufficient light for the proprietor to see himself, and enable him to scribble down his accounts, what few he kept in books. In this gruesome little office Peter sat, from early morning to late night, smoking his foul smelling pipe, receiving his cash from sales, and also receiving the people who did not call on strictly commercial affairs; and betimes he peered through a smoky glass-covered square hole that perforated one side of the thin partition that circled him about, into the store, watching, with squinting eyes, Eli Jerey, his clerk, dealing out the junk to the poor purchasers.

Peter Dieman was a fiend incarnate, after money. He was avaricious to the core. He was relentlessly pressing in the collection of overdue bills, and heartlessly "jewing" in the purchase of the worn-out, worm-eaten, moth-ravaged articles that he gathered up, in his rounds, from the unfortunates, the n'er-do-wells, the hopeless mortals who had to sacrifice their goods and chattels to make ends meet; or who, peradventure, were glad to dispose of any cumbersome article of their more prosperous days. Further, besides being a close dealer, he was a shaver of notes, a conscienceless dealer without regard whatever for the principles of justice, or the duties of a citizen, or the honor of the brethren of his tribe of men. And still further, he was so selfishly constituted that no barterer could ever equal him in his surprisingly pronounced talents for cheating, filching and over-charging. Without education, and alone, on his own initiative, and through his own painstaking, persistent, persevering efforts he arose from nothing to, what would be considered by many, a state of enviable affluence for his station in the ranks of the commercial men of the city.

He could neither read nor write when he started out for himself on the road of life; but by dint of much endeavor he learned to write by rote, like a blind man, and talk by imitation, like a parrot. For many years he was his own buyer, his own seller, his own bookkeeper, his own handy man and henchman. But when he had accumulated a world of experience, a great quantity of junk, a large sum of money, and the desire to be an expert ward heeler, he hired Eli Jerey, as a boy of ten, to be his helper.

Now, Eli was a lad with no more ambition than a toad. Being obsessed with that slavish passion one finds in so many of his class to serve a master for a mere competance that would meet his daily expenses, he went about his business with such translucent simplicity and dutiful obedience to his master's will that he worked from six in the morning till seven in the evening with such a zeal that Peter could make no complaint whatever to his energy in keeping shop, while he in turn kept office and watched through the little square hole aforesaid.

This place became known as The Die early in the career of Peter—a corruption of the name of Dieman, and perhaps a revealer of his principles.

One day, in September, while the fog and smoke hung darkly over the river and everything, a short heavyset man, very plainly dressed, but with an inquisitorial air in his bearing, sauntered into the shop, and looked about as carelessly and indolently as if he were a sojourner come to view, with a curious eye, the accumulation of things as if on display in a museum. The stranger walked about, with his hands in his pockets, through the narrow aisles between ropes, chains, furniture, pictures, old shoes, hats, clothing, saws, hammers, hatchets, and a thousand and one other things piled up, hanging about, swinging here, or perching there. He was so mysterious in his movements that Eli, upon concluding a simple deal with a louting riverman, came timidly up to him in such a condescending manner that the stranger was struck with amusing amazement at the deferential halo that seemed to pervade the shrimp-like head of the clerk.

"Anything?" asked Eli, approaching.

"Well, I don't know," answered the stranger, his eyes roving about the room. "I just came in to see if you had anything I wanted." Still gazing abstractedly into a far corner where lay deeper piles of junk, he went on, "I guess, though, from the looks of things, I might get anything I want here, from a gimlet to a gibet."

Eli stared doubtfully at the man, wondering at his utter lack of concentration on the object sought. In the meantime, Peter was not off his guard at his peephole. He was standing, looking out, rubbing his hands and squinting, in an effort to make out the identity of the man.

"Nothing in iron? Nothing in ropes? Nothing in old clothes? Nothing in furniture?" asked Eli.

"Don't know just yet," answered the stranger, now with his eyes cast down upon the docile but ever guardful Eli.

"What then?" asked Eli, still pursuing his questioning, and still indecisive as to how to approach this uncommunicative customer.

"I am just looking," answered the stranger, vacantly. "Oh, well—just to see if I can see anything of benefit that I might carry off."

Then off he went, mozying through the congested aisles, with that vacuous stare about him that is assumed, usually, by a Jehue in a vaudeville show. Eli followed him, very closely, watching very sharply, being suspicious all the time that he might pick up a stray pin and carry it off without just compensation to his close-fisted master. The stranger strayed on, in and out, in and out, among the junkage, till he came at last to the cubby-hole, eyed through at that moment by old Peter.

Arriving at the entrance of Peter's sanctuary, the stranger stopped, looked about him listlessly, and took hold of the latch of the door, pressed his thumb slowly upon it, opened it, and walked within, without invitation, or concern as to who might be the occupant therein—bear or man.

"Good morning," said Peter, eyeing him suspiciously. "What do you want?"

"Well, sir," answered the stranger, "I just stepped in a moment to see if you could supply me with a kit of tools."

"This is my office, sir; my office," said Peter, cross as a she-bear. "Why didn't you ask my clerk, sir; my clerk?"—now rubbing his hands briskly and leering at the stranger. "He will supply your wants, maybe, sir, if he has what you want."

"I always deal with the proprietor of an establishment," remarked the stranger, seating himself. "No harm in that, I reckon, sir?"

"None," returned Peter, with a growl. "None, sir."

"Then, do you have a kit of burglar tools?" asked the stranger, with a suavity of an oily-tongued vender of patent