The Haunted Bookshop

rn Cob

apter may be omitted by all re

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 r

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

n 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.

d "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

ught 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.

hung from the ceiling. The door was ajar, but everything else seemed as usual. Bock, hearing his footsteps, came trotting out from the kitche

en." He closed and locked it. Then he noticed that the terrier was sniffing in

ed 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

that book last night and couldn't find it. When that professor fello

sed 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 o

ked 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 vittl

two very competent arms surround him, and a pink gingham apron was thrown over his head. "M

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 fini

a real Thanksgiving. You look as plump and

tify 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

He hung up a cup in the china clos

did yo

nd mustn't be supposed to come under

And what did J

d by the

way, we're going to be haunted by a beauteous damsel pretty soon. You remember my telling you that Mr. C

and produced the followin

MR. M

f 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

ans 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 respon

overheard her saying to one of her friends yesterday that she was going to do some "literary work" this winter. That's th

ally

E CHA

ou think it will be rather interesting to get a naive young g

may fool yourself, but you can't fool me. A girl of nineteen doesn't REACT toward things. She explodes. Things don't 'react

hat 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 i

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 Bond

rn Cobs want their chocolate cake to-night, I must ge

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 em

t 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' sal

, "it's a cold evening. Pull up toward the fire. Make free with the cider.

ittle man who had a habit of listening to what he heard. "I

said Roger. "

the Gissing Street movie palace," said G

ill read The Jungle

literature," cried Jerry. "A book's a bo

th Avenue bookstore. "Lots of people enjoy Harold Bell Wright just as lots

f non sequiturs," said Jerry, stimulat

led Benson, the dealer in r

to say what's good and what isn't. Our job is simply to supply the public with the books i

warmly, "and you're the kind of guy that makes it so. I suppose you would say that i

ke a little liquid nourishment. Solid foods don't interest it. If you try to cram roast beef down the gullet of an inv

t basis," said Roger. "I ha

ave," interj

ney out of Bryce's American Commonwealth than it eve

hy shouldn't t

retzels, 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

es sparkling above richly tinted cheek-bon

, grinning, "Mifflin confusing

ply saying that it is good b

inck 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 c

get away from them. My mind would blow out its fuses if I had to abide by the dirty litt

by the dirty little consideration of earni

en occurred to me in selling rare editions may interest you. The customer's willingness to part with his

s a bit like J

k 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 nece

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 fascinatin

uld you think of a physician who saw men suffering from a c

with a lot of books that no one but highbrows would buy. What would you think of a base publi

g you is that the bookseller is a public servant. He ought to be pensioned by the state. The hono

of the publishers. We have to stock the new stuff, a large proportion of which is 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 re

likely to be fourflushers. We had one once at our factory, and as far as I could mak

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

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 satisf

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 o

as your chance to introduce he

-I didn't t

s a young chap in here the other day from an advertising agency, tryin

y. The only question is, does it

-What do

w 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 f

's ads. I hadn't thought of that. But I think I shall put a litt

SSUS

BOOKS

D

HOP IS

to see what c

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

mpossible job for a man who loves literature. When did a books

nson's father w

uldn't afford to pay

e 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 fo

e the depositories of the human spirit, which is the only th

nor the gil

l outlive this

ight! And wait a minute! There's something

nity grinned at each other. Gladfist cleaned his pipe and poured out som

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 tol

in, looking r

l that copy of Cromwell was on the shelf because

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 w

't sell it this evening. I woke her up to ask her. She was dozing

rlyle quotation," said Be

otebook," said Roger, hunting along a s

perish, cannot perish. What of Heroism, what of Eternal Light was in a Man and his Life, is with ve

because he aids in the cross-fertilization of men and books. His delight in his callin

is 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 m

ou are a upas tree. You

rn early. Your conversation is always delightful, though I am sometimes a bit uncertain as to the conclusio

hop, Mr. Chapman drew Roger aside. "It's perfe

Roger. "When does

orrow to

irs that she can have. I've got some ideas of my own about