One cannot haggle with Mr. Macassor as with some mere tradesman in Charing Cross Road. The purchaser pays and goes away triumphant. It is thus that Mr. Macassor’s son at Magdalen is able to keep his rooms full of flowers and, during the season, to hunt two days a week.

Enter Adam from a taxi laden with books. Mr. Macassor offers him snuff from an old tortoiseshell box.

“IT’S A SAD THING TO HAVE TO SELL BOOKS, MR. DOURE. Very sad. I remember as if it was yesterday, Mr. Stevenson coming in to me to sell his books, and will you believe it, Mr. Doure, when it came to the point, after we had arranged everything, his heart failed him and he took them all away again. A great book-lover, Mr. Stevenson.”

Mr. Macassor adjusts his spectacles and examines, caressingly, but like some morbid lover fastening ghoulishly upon every imperfection.

“Well, and how much were you expecting for these?”

Adam hazards, “Seventeen pounds,” but Mr. Macassor shakes his head sadly.

Five minutes later he leaves the shop with ten pounds and gets into his taxi.

PADDINGTON STATION.

Adam in the train to Oxford; smoking, his hands deep in his overcoat pockets.

“’E’s thinking of ’er.”

OXFORD.

KNOW YOU HER SECRET NONE CAN UTTER; HERS OF THE BOOK, THE TRIPLE CROWN? Art title showing Book and Triple Crown; also Ox in ford.

General prospect of Oxford from the train showing reservoir, gas works and part of the prison. It is raining.

The station; two Indian students have lost their luggage. Resisting the romantic appeal of several hansom cabdrivers—even of one in a grey billycock hat, Adam gets into a Ford taxi. Queen Street, Carfax, the High Street, Radcliffe Camera in the distance.