The young lawyer's own matters were at a juncture where a fee was a godsend, yet he replied: 

 "If your matter is not of the law I can make you no charge." 

 The costumer shrugged: "Pardon, in that case I must seek elsewhere." He would have moved on, but Chester asked: 

 "What kind of advice do you want if not legal?" 

 "Literary." 

 The young man smiled: "Why, I'm not literary." 

 "I think yes. You know Ovide Landry? Black man? Secon'-han' books, Chartres Street, just yonder?" 

 "Yes, very pleasantly, for I love old books." 

 "Yes, and old buildings, and their histories. I know. You are now going down, as I have just been, to see again the construction of that old dome they are dim-olishing yonder, of the once state-house, previously Hotel St. Louis. I know. Twice a day you pass my shop. I am compelled to see, what Ovide also has told me, that, like me and my wife, you have a passion for the poétique and the pittoresque!" 

 "Yes," Chester laughed, "but that's my limit. I've never written a line for print----" 

 "This writing is done, since fifty years." 

 "I've never passed literary judgment on a written page and don't suppose I ever shall." 

 "The judgment is passed. The value of the article is pronounced great--by an expert amateur." 

 "SHE?" the youth silently asked himself. He spoke: "Why, then what advice do you still want--how to find a publisher?" 

 "No, any publisher will jump at that. But how to so nig-otiate that he shall not be the lion and we the lamb!" 

 Chester smiled again: "Why, if that's the point--" he mused. The hope came again that this unusual shopman and his wish had something to do with her. 

 "If that's the advice you want," he resumed, "I think we might construe it as legal, though worth at the most a mere notarial fee." 

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