“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 poetique 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.”

“And contingent on—?” the costumer prompted.

“Contingent, yes, on the author’s success.”

“Sir!  I am not the author of a manuscript fifty years old!”

“Well, then, on the holder’s success.  You can agree to that, can’t you?”

“’Tis agreed.  You are my counsel.  When will you see the manuscript?”

“Whenever you choose to leave it with me.”

The costumer’s smile was firm:  “Sir, I cannot permit that to pass from my hand.”

“Oh! then have a copy typed for me.”

The Creole soliloquized:  “That would be expensive.”  Then to Chester:  “Sir, I will tell you; to-night come at our parlor, over the shop.  I will read you that!”

“Shall we be alone?” asked Chester, hoping his client would say no.

“Only excepting my”—­a tender brightness—­“my wife!” Then a shade of regret:  “We are without children, me and my wife.”

His wife.  H’mm! She?  That amazing one who had vanished within a few yards of his bazaar of “masques et costumes”?  Though to Chester New Orleans was still new, and though fat law-books and a slim purse kept him much to himself, he was aware that, while some Creoles grew rich, many of them, women, once rich, were being driven even to stand behind counters.  Yet no such plight could he imagine of that bewildering young—­young luminary who, this second time, so out of time, had gleamed on him from mystery’s cloud.  His earlier hope came a third time:  “Excepting only your wife, you say?  Why not also your amateur expert?”