“Mr. Hardscrabble!” says the man, bowing and taking a seat, leisurely, upon the decrepid sofa.  Mr. McArthur returns his salutation, contemplates him doubtingly for a minute, then resumes his fussing and brushing.

The small, lean figure; the somewhat seedy broadcloth in which it is enveloped; the well-browned and very sharp features; the straight, dark-gray hair, and the absent manner of Mr. Hardscrabble, might, with the uninitiated, cause him to be mistaken for an “up-country” clergyman of the Methodist denomination.

“Mr. Hardscrabble?  Mr. Hardscrabble?  Mr. Hardscrabble?” muses the Antiquary, canting his head wisely, “the Sheriff, as I’m a man of years!”

Mr. Hardscrabble comforts his eyes with his spectacles, and having glanced vacantly over the little shop, as if to take an inventory of its contents, draws from his breast-pocket a paper containing very ominous seals and scrawls.

“I’m reluctant about doing these things with an old man like you,” Mr. Hardscrabble condescends to say, in a sharp, grating voice; “but I have to obey the demands of my office.”  Here he commences reading the paper to the trembling old man, who, having adjusted his broad-bowed spectacles, and arrayed them against the spectacles of Mr. Hardscrabble, says he thinks it contains a great many useless recapitulations.

Mr. Hardscrabble, his eyes peering eagerly through his glasses, and his lower jaw falling and exposing the inner domain of his mouth, replies with an—­“Umph.”  The old Antiquary was never before called upon to examine a document so confusing to his mind.  Not content with a surrender of his property, it demands his body into the bargain-all at the suit of one Keepum.  He makes several motions to go show it to his daughter; but that, Mr. Hardscrabble thinks, is scarce worth while.  “I sympathize with you-knowing how frugal you have been through life.  A list of your effects-if you have one-will save a deal of trouble.  I fear (Mr. Hardscrabble works his quid) my costs will hardly come out of them.”

“There’s a fortune in them-if the love of things of yore—­” The old man hesitates, and shakes his head dolefully.

“Yore!—­a thing that would starve out our profession.”

“A little time to turn, you know.  There’s my stock of uniforms.”

“Well-I-know,” Mr. Hardscrabble rejoins, with a drawl; “but I must lock up the traps.  Yes, I must lock you up, and sell you out-unless you redeem before sale day; that you can’t do, I suppose?”

And while the old man totters into the little back parlor, and, giving way to his emotions, throws himself upon the bosom of his fond daughter, to whom he discloses his troubles, Mr. Hardscrabble puts locks and bolts upon his curiosity-shop.  This important business done, he leads the old man away, and gives him a lodging in the old jail.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

A short chapter of ordinary events.