| The latter half of this chapter may be omitted by all
readers who are not booksellers.
The Haunted Bookshop was a delightful place, especially
of an evening,
when its drowsy alcoves were kindled with the brightness
of lamps
shining on the rows of volumes. Many a passer-by would
stumble down
the steps from the street in sheer curiosity; others,
familiar visitors,
dropped in with the same comfortable emotion that a man
feels on
entering his club. Roger's custom was to sit at his desk
in the rear,
puffing his pipe and reading; though if any customer
started
a conversation, the little man was quick and eager to
carry it on.
The lion of talk lay only sleeping in him; it was not
hard to goad
it up.
It may be remarked that all bookshops that are open in
the evening
are busy in the after-supper hours. Is it that the true
book-lovers
are nocturnal gentry, only venturing forth when darkness
and silence
and the gleam of hooded lights irresistibly suggest reading?
Certainly night-time has a mystic affinity for literature,
and it is strange that the Esquimaux have created no
great books.
Surely, for most of us, an arctic night would be insupportable
without O. Henry and Stevenson. Or, as Roger Mifflin
remarked during
a passing enthusiasm for Ambrose Bierce, the true noctes
ambrosianae
are the noctes ambrose bierceianae.
But Roger was prompt in closing Parnassus at ten o'clock.
At that hour
he and Bock (the mustard-coloured terrier, named for
Boccaccio)
would make the round of the shop, see that everything
was shipshape,
empty the ash trays provided for customers, lock the
front door,
and turn off the lights. Then they would retire to the
den,
where Mrs. Mifflin was generally knitting or reading.
She would
brew a pot of cocoa and they would read or talk for half
an hour
or so before bed. Sometimes Roger would take a stroll
along Gissing
Street before turning in. All day spent with books has
a rather
exhausting effect on the mind, and he used to enjoy the
fresh air
sweeping up the dark Brooklyn streets, meditating some
thought
that had sprung from his reading, while Bock sniffed
and padded
along in the manner of an elderly dog at night.
While Mrs. Mifflin was away, however, Roger's routine
was
somewhat different. After closing the shop he would return
to his desk and with a furtive, shamefaced air take out
from
a bottom drawer an untidy folder of notes and manuscript.
This was the skeleton in his closet, his secret sin.
It was the scaffolding of his book, which he had been
compiling
for at least ten years, and to which he had tentatively
assigned such
different titles as "Notes on Literature," "The Muse
on Crutches,"
"Books and I," and "What a Young Bookseller Ought to
Know."
It had begun long ago, in the days of his odyssey as
a rural
book huckster, under the title of "Literature Among the
Farmers,"
but it had branched out until it began to appear that
(in bulk
at least) Ridpath would have to look to his linoleum
laurels.
The manuscript in its present state had neither beginning
nor end,
but it was growing strenuously in the middle, and hundreds
of pages were covered with Roger's minute script. The
chapter on
"Ars Bibliopolae," or the art of bookselling, would be,
he hoped,
a classic among generations of book vendors still unborn.
Seated at his disorderly desk, caressed by a counterpane
of drifting
tobacco haze, he would pore over the manuscript, crossing
out,
interpolating, re-arguing, and then referring to volumes
on his shelves.
Bock would snore under the chair, and soon Roger's brain
would
begin to waver. In the end he would fall asleep over
his papers,
wake with a cramp about two o'clock, and creak irritably
to a
lonely bed.
All this we mention only to explain how it was that Roger
was dozing at his desk about midnight, the evening after the call paid
by Aubrey Gilbert.
He was awakened by a draught of chill air passing like
a mountain
brook over his bald pate. Stiffly he sat up and looked
about.
The shop was in darkness save for the bright electric
over his head.
Bock, of more regular habit than his master, had gone
back to his
couch in the kitchen, made of a packing case that had
once coffined
a set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
"That's funny," said Roger to himself. "Surely I locked
the door?"
He walked to the front of the shop, switching on the
cluster of lights
that hung from the ceiling. The door was ajar, but everything
else seemed as usual. Bock, hearing his footsteps, came
trotting
out from the kitchen, his claws rattling on the bare
wooden floor.
He looked up with the patient inquiry of a dog accustomed
to the
eccentricities of his patron.
"I guess I'm getting absent-minded," said Roger.
"I must have left the door open." He closed and locked
it.
Then he noticed that the terrier was sniffing in the
History alcove,
which was at the front of the shop on the left-hand side.
"What is it, old man?" said Roger. "Want something to
read in bed?"
He turned on the light in that alcove. Everything appeared
normal.
Then he noticed a book that projected an inch or so beyond
the even
line of bindings. It was a fad of Roger's to keep all
his books
in a flat row on the shelves, and almost every evening
at closing
time he used to run his palm along the backs of the volumes
to level
any irregularities left by careless browsers. He put
out a hand
to push the book into place. Then he stopped.
"Queer again," he thought. "Carlyle's Oliver Cromwell!
I looked for that book last night and couldn't find it.
When that
professor fellow was here. Maybe I'm tired and can't
see straight.
I'll go to bed."
The next day was a date of some moment. Not only was it
Thanksgiving Day, with the November meeting of the Corn
Cob Club
scheduled for that evening, but Mrs. Mifflin had promised
to get home
from Boston in time to bake a chocolate cake for the
booksellers.
It was said that some of the members of the club were
faithful
in attendance more by reason of Mrs. Mifflin's chocolate
cake,
and the cask of cider that her brother Andrew McGill
sent down from
the Sabine Farm every autumn, than on account of the
bookish conversation.
Roger spent the morning in doing a little housecleaning,
in preparation
for his wife's return. He was a trifle abashed to find
how many mingled
crumbs and tobacco cinders had accumulated on the dining-room
rug.
He cooked himself a modest lunch of lamb chops and baked
potatoes,
and was pleased by an epigram concerning food that came
into his mind.
"It's not the food you dream about that matters," he
said to himself;
"it's the vittles that walk right in and become a member
of the family."
He felt that this needed a little polishing and rephrasing,
but that there
was a germ of wit in it. He had a habit of encountering
ideas at his
solitary meals.
After this, he was busy at the sink scrubbing the dishes,
when he was surprised by feeling two very competent arms
surround him, and a pink gingham apron was thrown over
his head.
"Mifflin," said his wife, "how many times have I told
you to put
on an apron when you wash up!"
They greeted each other with the hearty, affectionate
simplicity
of those congenially wedded in middle age. Helen Mifllin
was
a buxom, healthy creature, rich in good sense and good
humour,
well nourished both in mind and body. She kissed Roger's
bald head,
tied the apron around his shrimpish person, and sat down
on a kitchen
chair to watch him finish wiping the china. Her cheeks
were cool
and ruddy from the keen air, her face lit with the tranquil
satisfaction
of those who have sojourned in the comfortable city of
Boston.
"Well, my dear," said Roger, "this makes it a real Thanksgiving.
You look as plump and full of matter as The Home Book
of Verse."
"I've had a stunning time," she said, patting Bock who
stood at her knee,
imbibing the familiar and mysterious fragrance by which
dogs identify
their human friends. "I haven't even heard of a book
for three weeks.
I did stop in at the Old Angle Book Shop yesterday, just
to say
hullo to Joe Jillings. He says all booksellers are crazy,
but that you are the craziest of the lot. He wants to
know if you're
bankrupt yet."
Roger's slate-blue eyes twinkled. He hung up a cup in
the china
closet and lit his pipe before replying.
"What did you say?"
"I said that our shop was haunted, and mustn't be supposed
to come
under the usual conditions of the trade."
"Bully for you! And what did Joe say to that?"
"`Haunted by the nuts!'"
"Well," said Roger, "when literature goes bankrupt I'm
willing to go
with it. Not till then. But by the way, we're going to
be haunted
by a beauteous damsel pretty soon. You remember my telling
you
that Mr. Chapman wants to send his daughter to work in
the shop?
Well, here's a letter I had from him this morning."
He rummaged in his pocket, and produced the following,
which Mrs. Mifflin read:
DEAR MR. MIFFLIN,
I am so delighted that you and Mrs. Mifflin are willing
to try
the experiment of taking my daughter as an apprentice.
Titania is really a very charming girl, and if only we
can get
some of the "finishing school" nonsense out of her head
she
will make a fine woman. She has had (it was my fault,
not hers)
the disadvantage of being brought up, or rather brought
down,
by having every possible want and whim gratified. Out
of kindness
for herself and her future husband, if she should have
one, I want
her to learn a little about earning a living. She is
nearly nineteen,
and I told her if she would try the bookshop job for
a while I would
take her to Europe for a year afterward.
As I explained to you, I want her to think she is really
earning
her way. Of course I don't want the routine to be too
hard for her,
but I do want her to get some idea of what it means to
face life
on one's own. If you will pay her ten dollars a week
as a beginner,
and deduct her board from that, I will pay you twenty
dollars
a week, privately, for your responsibility in caring
for her
and keeping your and Mrs. Mifflin's friendly eyes on
her.
I'm coming round to the Corn Cob meeting to-morrow night,
and we can
make the final arrangements.
Luckily, she is very fond of books, and I really think
she
is looking forward to the adventure with much anticipation.
I overheard her saying to one of her friends yesterday
that she
was going to do some "literary work" this winter. That's
the kind
of nonsense I want her to outgrow. When I hear her say
that she's
got a job in a bookstore, I'll know she's cured.
Cordially yours,
GEORGE CHAPMAN.
"Well?" said Roger, as Mrs. Mifflin made no comment. "Don't
you
think it will be rather interesting to get a naive young
girl's
reactions toward the problems of our tranquil existence?"
"Roger, you blessed innocent!" cried his wife. "Life will
no
longer be tranquil with a girl of nineteen round the
place.
You may fool yourself, but you can't fool me. A girl
of nineteen
doesn't REACT toward things. She explodes. Things don't
`react'
anywhere but in Boston and in chemical laboratories.
I suppose you
know you're taking a human bombshell into the arsenal?"
Roger looked dubious. "I remember something in Weir of
Hermiston about a girl being `an explosive engine,'"
he said.
"But I don't see that she can do any very great harm
round here.
We're both pretty well proof against shell shock. The
worst
that could happen would be if she got hold of my private
copy
of Fireside Conversation in the Age of queen Elizabeth.
Remind me to lock it up somewhere, will you?"
This secret masterpiece by Mark Twain was one of the bookseller's
treasures. Not even Helen had ever been permitted to
read it;
and she had shrewdly judged that it was not in her line,
for though
she knew perfectly well where he kept it (together with
his life
insurance policy, some Liberty Bonds, an autograph letter
from Charles
Spencer Chaplin, and a snapshot of herself taken on their
honeymoon)
she had never made any attempt to examine it.
"Well," said Helen; "Titania or no Titania, if the Corn
Cobs want
their chocolate cake to-night, I must get busy. Take
my suitcase
upstairs like a good fellow."
A gathering of booksellers is a pleasant sanhedrim to
attend.
The members of this ancient craft bear mannerisms and
earmarks
just as definitely recognizable as those of the cloak
and suit
business or any other trade. They are likely to be a
little--
shall we say--worn at the bindings, as becomes men who
have forsaken
worldly profit to pursue a noble calling ill rewarded
in cash.
They are possibly a trifle embittered, which is an excellent
demeanour
for mankind in the face of inscrutable heaven. Long experience
with publishers salesmen makes them suspicious of books
praised
between the courses of a heavy meal. When a publisher's
salesman
takes you out to dinner, it is not surprising if the
conversation
turns toward literature about the time the last of the
peas
are being harried about the plate. But, as Jerry Gladfist
says
(he runs a shop up on Thirty-Eighth Street) the publishers'
salesmen supply a long-felt want, for they do now and
then buy one
a dinner the like of which no bookseller would otherwise
be likely
to commit.
"Well, gentlemen," said Roger as his guests assembled
in his
little cabinet, "it's a cold evening. Pull up toward
the fire.
Make free with the cider. The cake's on the table. My
wife came back
from Boston specially to make it."
"Here's Mrs. Mifflin's health!" said Mr. Chapman, a quiet
little man who had a habit of listening to what he heard.
"I hope she doesn't mind keeping the shop while we celebrate?"
"Not a bit," said Roger. "She enjoys it."
"I see Tarzan of the Apes is running at the Gissing Street
movie palace,"
said Gladfist. "Great stuff. Have you seen it?"
"Not while I can still read The Jungle Book," said Roger.
"You make me tired with that talk about literature," cried
Jerry.
"A book's a book, even if Harold Bell Wright wrote it."
"A book's a book if you enjoy reading it," amended Meredith,
from a big
Fifth Avenue bookstore. "Lots of people enjoy Harold
Bell Wright
just as lots of people enjoy tripe. Either of them would
kill me.
But let's be tolerant."
"Your argument is a whole succession of non sequiturs,"
said Jerry,
stimulated by the cider to unusual brilliance.
"That's a long putt," chuckled Benson, the dealer in rare
books
and first editions.
"What I mean is this," said Jerry. "We aren't literary
critics.
It's none of our business to say what's good and what
isn't. Our
job is simply to supply the public with the books it
wants when it
wants them. How it comes to want the books it does is
no concern
of ours."
"You're the guy that calls bookselling the worst business
in the world,"
said Roger warmly, "and you're the kind of guy that makes
it so.
I suppose you would say that it is no concern of the
bookseller to try
to increase the public appetite for books?"
"Appetite is too strong a word," said Jerry. "As far as
books
are concerned the public is barely able to sit up and
take a little
liquid nourishment. Solid foods don't interest it. If
you try
to cram roast beef down the gullet of an invalid you'll
kill him.
Let the public alone, and thank God when it comes round
to amputate
any of its hard-earned cash."
"Well, take it on the lowest basis," said Roger. "I haven't
any facts to go upon----"
"You never have," interjected Jerry.
"But I'd like to bet that the Trade has made more money
out of
Bryce's American Commonwealth than it ever did out of
all Parson
Wright's books put together."
"What of it? Why shouldn't they make both?"
This preliminary tilt was interrupted by the arrival of
two
more visitors, and Roger handed round mugs of cider,
pointed to
the cake and the basket of pretzels, and lit his corn-cob
pipe.
The new arrivals were Quincy and Fruehling; the former
a clerk
in the book department of a vast drygoods store, the
latter
the owner of a bookshop in the Hebrew quarter of Grand
Street--
one of the best-stocked shops in the city, though little
known
to uptown book-lovers.
"Well," said Fruehling, his bright dark eyes sparkling
above richly
tinted cheek-bones and bushy beard, "what's the argument?"
"The usual one," said Gladfist, grinning, "Mifflin confusing
merchandise with metaphysics."
MIFFLIN--Not at all. I am simply saying that it is good
business
to sell only the best.
GLADFIST--Wrong again. You must select your stock according
to your customers. Ask Quincy here. Would there be any
sense
in his loading up his shelves with Maeterlinck and Shaw
when the
department-store trade wants Eleanor Porter and the Tarzan
stuff?
Does a country grocer carry the same cigars that are
listed
on the wine card of a Fifth Avenue hotel? Of course not.
He gets in the cigars that his trade enjoys and is accustomed
to.
Bookselling must obey the ordinary rules of commerce.
MIFFLIN--A fig for the ordinary rules of commerce!
I came over here to Gissing Street to get away from them.
My mind would blow out its fuses if I had to abide by
the dirty little
considerations of supply and demand. As far as I am concerned,
supply CREATES demand.
GLADFIST--Still, old chap, you have to abide by the dirty
little
consideration of earning a living, unless someone has
endowed you?
BENSON--Of course my line of business isn't strictly the
same as you
fellows'. But a thought that has often occurred to me
in selling
rare editions may interest you. The customer's willingness
to part
with his money is usually in inverse ratio to the permanent
benefit
he expects to derive from what he purchases.
MEREDITH--Sounds a bit like John Stuart Mill.
BENSON--Even so, it may be true. Folks will pay a darned
sight
more to be amused than they will to be exalted. Look
at the way
a man shells out five bones for a couple of theatre seats,
or spends
a couple of dollars a week on cigars without thinking
of it.
Yet two dollars or five dollars for a book costs him
positive anguish.
The mistake you fellows in the retail trade have made
is in
trying to persuade your customers that books are necessities.
Tell them they're luxuries. That'll get them! People
have to work
so hard in this life they're shy of necessities. A man
will go on
wearing a suit until it's threadbare, much sooner than
smoke a thread
bare cigar.
GLADFIST--Not a bad thought. You know, Mifflin here calls
me a
material-minded cynic, but by thunder, I think I'm more
idealistic than
he is. I'm no propagandist incessantly trying to cajole
poor innocent
customers into buying the kind of book _I_ think they
ought to buy.
When I see the helpless pathos of most of them, who drift
into
a bookstore without the slightest idea of what they want
or what is
worth reading, I would disdain to take advantage of their
frailty.
They are absolutely at the mercy of the salesman. They
will buy
whatever he tells them to. Now the honourable man, the
high-minded man
(by which I mean myself) is too proud to ram some shimmering
stuff
at them just because he thinks they ought to read it.
Let the boobs
blunder around and grab what they can. Let natural selection
operate.
I think it is fascinating to watch them, to see their
helpless groping,
and to study the weird ways in which they make their
choice.
Usually they will buy a book either because they think
the jacket
is attractive, or because it costs a dollar and a quarter
instead
of a dollar and a half, or because they say they saw
a review of it.
The "review" usually turns out to be an ad. I don't think
one
book-buyer in a thousand knows the difference.
MIFFLIN--Your doctrine is pitiless, base, and false! What
would
you think of a physician who saw men suffering from a
curable
disease and did nothing to alleviate their sufferings?
GLADFIST--Their sufferings (as you call them) are nothing
to what
mine would be if I stocked up with a lot of books that
no one
but highbrows would buy. What would you think of a base
public
that would go past my shop day after day and let the
high-minded
occupant die of starvation?
MIFFLIN--Your ailment, Jerry, is that you conceive yourself
as
merely a tradesman. What I'm telling you is that the
bookseller
is a public servant. He ought to be pensioned by the
state.
The honour of his profession should compel him to do
all he can
to spread the distribution of good stuff.
QUINCY--I think you forget how much we who deal chiefly
in new books
are at the mercy of the publishers. We have to stock
the new stuff,
a large proportion of which is always punk. Why it is
punk,
goodness knows, because most of the bum books don't sell.
MIFFLIN--Ah, that is a mystery indeed! But I can give
you
a fair reason. First, because there isn't enough good
stuff
to go round. Second, because of the ignorance of the
publishers,
many of whom honestly don't know a good book when they
see it.
It is a matter of sheer heedlessness in the selection
of what they
intend to publish. A big drug factory or a manufacturer
of a
well-known jam spends vast sums of money on chemically
assaying
and analyzing the ingredients that are to go into his
medicines
or in gathering and selecting the fruit that is to be
stewed
into jam. And yet they tell me that the most important
department
of a publishing business, which is the gathering and
sampling
of manuscripts, is the least considered and the least
remunerated.
I knew a reader for one publishing house: he was a babe
recently
out of college who didn't know a book from a frat pin.
If a jam
factory employs a trained chemist, why isn't it worth
a publisher's
while to employ an expert book analyzer? There are some
of them.
Look at the fellow who runs the Pacific Monthly's book
business
for example! He knows a thing or two.
CHAPMAN--I think perhaps you exaggerate the value of those
trained experts. They are likely to be fourflushers.
We had
one once at our factory, and as far as I could make out
he never
thought we were doing good business except when we were
losing money.
MIFFLIN--As far as I have been able to observe, making
money is
the easiest thing in the world. All you have to do is
to turn out
an honest product, something that the public needs. Then
you have
to let them know that you have it, and teach them that
they need it.
They will batter down your front door in their eagerness
to get it.
But if you begin to hand them gold bricks, if you begin
to sell them books
built like an apartment house, all marble front and all
brick behind,
you're cutting your own throat, or rather cutting your
own pocket,
which is the same thing.
MEREDITH--I think Mifflin's right. You know the kind of
place
our shop is: a regular Fifth Avenue store, all plate
glass front
and marble columns glowing in the indirect lighting like
a birchwood
at full moon. We sell hundreds of dollars' worth of bunkum
every day
because people ask for it; but I tell you we do it with
reluctance.
It's rather the custom in our shop to scoff at the book-buying
public and call them boobs, but they really want good
books--
the poor souls don't know how to get them. Still, Jerry
has a certain
grain of truth to his credit. I get ten times more satisfaction
in selling a copy of Newton's The Amenities of Book-Collecting
than I do in selling a copy of--well, Tarzan; but it's
poor
business to impose your own private tastes on your customers.
All you can do is to hint them along tactfully, when
you get a chance,
toward the stuff that counts.
QUINCY--You remind me of something that happened in our
book
department the other day. A flapper came in and said
she had
forgotten the name of the book she wanted, but it was
something about
a young man who had been brought up by the monks. I was
stumped.
I tried her with The Cloister and the Hearth and Monastery
Bells
and Legends of the Monastic Orders and so on, but her
face was blank.
Then one of the salesgirls overheard us talking, and
she guessed it
right off the bat. Of course it was Tarzan.
MIFFLIN--YOU poor simp, there was your chance to introduce
her
to Mowgli and the bandar-log.
QUINCY--True--I didn't think of it.
MIFFLIN--I'd like to get you fellows' ideas about advertising.
There was a young chap in here the other day from an
advertising agency,
trying to get me to put some copy in the papers. Have
you found that
it pays?
FRUEHLING--It always pays--somebody. The only question
is,
does it pay the man who pays for the ad?
MEREDITH--What do you mean?
FRUEHLING--Did you ever consider the problem of what I
call
tangential advertising? By that I mean advertising that
benefits
your rival rather than yourself? Take an example. On
Sixth
Avenue there is a lovely delicatessen shop, but rather
expensive.
Every conceivable kind of sweetmeat and relish is displayed
in
the brightly lit window. When you look at that window
it simply
makes your mouth water. You decide to have something
to eat.
But do you get it there? Not much! You go a little farther
down the street and get it at the Automat or the Crystal
Lunch.
The delicatessen fellow pays the overhead expense of
that beautiful
food exhibit, and the other man gets the benefit of it.
It's the same way in my business. I'm in a factory district,
where people can't afford to have any but the best books.
(Meredith will bear me out in saying that only the wealthy
can afford
the poor ones.) They read the book ads in the papers
and magazines, the ads of Meredith's shop and others, and then they come
to me to buy them.
I believe in advertising, but I believe in letting someone
else pay
for it.
MIFFLIN--I guess perhaps I can afford to go on riding
on Meredith's ads.
I hadn't thought of that. But I think I shall put a little
notice
in one of the papers some day, just a little card saying
PARNASSUS AT HOME
GOOD BOOKS BOUGHT
AND SOLD
THIS SHOP IS HAUNTED
It will be fun to see what come-back I get.
QUINCY--The book section of a department store doesn't
get much
chance to enjoy that tangential advertising, as Fruehling
calls it.
Why, when our interior decorating shark puts a few volumes
of a pirated
Kipling bound in crushed oilcloth or a copy of "Knock-kneed
Stories,"
into the window to show off a Louis XVIII boudoir suite,
display space is charged up against my department! Last
summer
he asked me for "something by that Ring fellow, I forget
the name,"
to put a punchy finish on a layout of porch furniture.
I thought
perhaps he meant Wagner's Nibelungen operas, and began
to dig them out. Then I found he meant Ring Lardner.
GLADFIST--There you are. I keep telling you bookselling
is an
impossible job for a man who loves literature. When did
a bookseller
ever make any real contribution to the world's happiness?
MIFFLIN--Dr. Johnson's father was a bookseller.
GLADFIST--Yes, and couldn't afford to pay for Sam's education.
FRUEHLING--There's another kind of tangential advertising
that
interests me. Take, for instance, a Coles Phillips painting
for some
brand of silk stockings. Of course the high lights of
the picture are
cunningly focussed on the stockings of the eminently
beautiful lady;
but there is always something else in the picture--an
automobile
or a country house or a Morris chair or a parasol--which
makes it
just as effective an ad for those goods as it is for
the stockings.
Every now and then Phillips sticks a book into his paintings,
and I expect the Fifth Avenue book trade benefits by
it.
A book that fits the mind as well as a silk stocking
does the ankle
will be sure to sell.
MIFFLIN--You are all crass materialists. I tell you, books
are
the depositories of the human spirit, which is the only
thing
in this world that endures. What was it Shakespeare said--
Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme--
By the bones of the Hohenzollerns, he was right! And wait
a minute!
There's something in Carlyle's Cromwell that comes back
to me.
He ran excitedly out of the room, and the members of the
Corn Cob
fraternity grinned at each other. Gladfist cleaned his
pipe and
poured out some more cider. "He's off on his hobby,"
he chuckled.
"I love baiting him."
"Speaking of Carlyle's Cromwell," said Fruehling, "that's
a book
I don't often hear asked for. But a fellow came in the
other
day hunting for a copy, and to my chagrin I didn't have
one.
I rather pride myself on keeping that sort of thing in
stock.
So I called up Brentano's to see if I could pick one
up, and they told
me they had just sold the only copy they had. Somebody
must have
been boosting Thomas! Maybe he's quoted in Tarzan, or
somebody has
bought up the film rights."
Mifflin came in, looking rather annoyed.
"Here's an odd thing," he said. "I know damn well that
copy
of Cromwell was on the shelf because I saw it there last
night.
It's not there now."
"That's nothing," said Quincy. "You know how people come
into
a second-hand store, see a book they take a fancy to
but don't
feel like buying just then, and tuck it away out of sight
or on
some other shelf where they think no one else will spot
it,
but they'll be able to find it when they can afford it.
Probably someone's done that with your Cromwell."
"Maybe, but I doubt it," said Mifflin. "Mrs. Mifflin says
she didn't sell it this evening. I woke her up to ask
her.
She was dozing over her knitting at the desk. I guess
she's tired
after her trip."
"I'm sorry to miss the Carlyle quotation," said Benson.
"What was the gist?"
"I think I've got it jotted down in a notebook," said
Roger,
hunting along a shelf. "Yes, here it is." He read aloud:
"The works of a man, bury them under what guano-mountains
and
obscene owl-droppings you will, do not perish, cannot
perish.
What of Heroism, what of Eternal Light was in a Man and
his Life,
is with very great exactness added to the Eternities,
remains forever
a new divine portion of the Sum of Things.
"Now, my friends, the bookseller is one of the keys in
that universal
adding machine, because he aids in the cross-fertilization
of men
and books. His delight in his calling doesn't need to
be stimulated
even by the bright shanks of a Coles Phillips picture.
"Roger, my boy," said Gladfist, "your innocent enthusiasm
makes me think of Tom Daly's favourite story about the Irish priest who
was rebuking
his flock for their love of whisky. `Whisky,' he said,
`is the bane
of this congregation. Whisky, that steals away a man's
brains.
Whisky, that makes you shoot at landlords--and not hit
them!'
Even so, my dear Roger, your enthusiasm makes you shoot
at truth
and never come anywhere near it."
"Jerry," said Roger, "you are a upas tree. Your shadow
is poisonous!"
"Well, gentlemen," said Mr. Chapman, "I know Mrs. Mifflin
wants to be
relieved of her post. I vote we adjourn early. Your conversation
is always delightful, though I am sometimes a bit uncertain
as to the conclusions. My daughter is going to be a bookseller,
and I shall look forward to hearing her views on the
business."
As the guests made their way out through the shop, Mr.
Chapman drew
Roger aside. "It's perfectly all right about sending
Titania?"
he asked.
"Absolutely," said Roger. "When does she want to come?"
"Is tomorrow too soon?"
"The sooner the better. We've got a little spare room
upstairs that she
can have. I've got some ideas of my own about furnishing
it for her.
Send her round tomorrow afternoon." |
