“Yes,” responded the father, and again his tone seemed strangely unfamiliar to the boy.  “I might have had such a store myself, if luck had been with me.”

The idea was more than Keith could digest at once.  It was too overwhelming, and once more he looked at his father with the feeling of wonder and awe that sometimes took hold of him almost against his will—­a feeling that clashed hopelessly with the nervous shyness commonly inspired by the father’s stern manners.

“Why didn’t you get it,” the boy ventured at last.

“Because I was born under the Monkey Star,” replied the father grimly.

The boy wondered what kind of star that was, but still more he wondered at the father’s mood which appeared to indicate a displeasure not directed at the questioner.  Before Keith could ask anything more, they had started across one of the open market places that line the fresh-water side of the old City.

The place was empty except for a few closed and abandoned booths.  But at the foot of it lay rows of one-masted sailing vessels loaded halfway up their masts with piles of fire-wood.  In the background, beyond a small sheet of water crossed by a low iron bridge, rose abruptly the rocky walls of the South End, with funny old houses perched precariously along their edges.  Keith stared so hard at all the new things that not a single question had a chance to escape him before they entered another street and stopped in front of a stone house that to him looked like a castle.

It had a real portal instead of an ordinary doorway, and the inside was still more impressive.  Keith had been to church once or twice, and for a moment he thought himself in one.  But he saw no seats, and his father did not look solemn at all.  The walls were of stone curiously streaked and coloured.  The ceiling was so far up that Keith had to bend far backwards to see it.  It was full of ornaments and supported by two rows of tall round stone pillars so thick that Keith could not get his arms halfway around one of them.  In the background rose a very broad and seemingly endless stairway of white stone.  While they climbed it step by step, Keith wondered if the king in his palace had anything like it.

Arrived at the top at last, they turned into a sort of lobby—­a rather bare room with several plain desks by the windows and many hooks along the inner wall.  There the father took off both his coats and armed himself with a huge feather duster and a rag.

“Remember, Keith,” he said in his ordinary tone, “that you may look as much as you please, but that you must not touch anything.  If you do, you can never come here again.”

Having passed through several smaller rooms, they emerged finally into a hall so bright and spacious that Keith stopped with a gasp and for a moment thought himself in the open air again.  It was as wide as the building itself and three sides were full of large windows A counter of mahogany that looked miles long ran from one end to the other.  The place behind it contained many desks so tall that Keith could not have reached the tops of them with his raised hand.  But from a distance he could see that they were full of tempting things—­paper and pens and pencils, red bars of sealing wax, glue-pots and rulers and glistening shears.