Dust in the balance Author:George Knight Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: AN IDYLL OF MAMMON. " John Barrington : sweetstuffs wholesale and retail." Ten years ago John Barrington had had that succinct inscription painted over the fr... more »ont of a tiny shop in Little Japan Street, and he could ill afford the thirty-five shillings it cost . When its letters first shone out upon Little Japan Street they were bright with yellow gold-leaf and gorgeous crimson; to-day they were scarcely distinguishable from the dingy black which constituted the external tint of John Barrington's business establishment. But as their gilded faces faded, and their blood-red perspective grew dim, the hoarded sovereigns gathered and waxed heavy in John Barring- ton's dinted cash-box. The neat wooden boxes of confectionery overflowed into firstone room and then another of the squat dark house, and a glass roof shot out over the cramped yard in the rear, all because John Barrington was a roan of push and quiet energy, and because Fortune smiled upon his ventures. These many years had John Barrington stood behind his own counter, or sat at the screened desk on its window-end during the greater part of the day. For, fast as his more important transactions multiplied, he could not afford to despise the pennies and halfpennies that lay within the disbursement of the children of Little Japan Street. In school-time, and when his retail business hours came to an end, he worked hard over the orders of his wholesale clients, and on Sundays he balanced his books and made out his invoices. On Bank Holidays he took stock. To look at, John Barrington was comely enough, being unbent and straight of limb, despite all his stooping, having bright eyes, a delicately-moulded chin, and a Viking nose.As a whole, indeed, he was strikingly Norse, for his head—itself spare and compact—was set squarely a...« less