Chapter II
The Corn Cob Club[1]
[1] The latter half of this chapter may be omitted by all readers whoare not booksellers.
The Haunted Bookshop was a delightful place, especially of an evening,when its drowsy alcoves were kindled with the brightness of lampsshining on the rows of volumes. Many a passer-by would stumble downthe steps from the street in sheer curiosity; others, familiarvisitors, dropped in with the same comfortable emotion that a man feelson entering his club. Roger's custom was to sit at his desk in therear, puffing his pipe and reading; though if any customer started aconversation, the little man was quick and eager to carry it on. Thelion 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 arebusy in the after-supper hours. Is it that the true book-lovers arenocturnal gentry, only venturing forth when darkness and silence andthe gleam of hooded lights irresistibly suggest reading? Certainlynight-time has a mystic affinity for literature, and it is strange thatthe Esquimaux have created no great books. Surely, for most of us, anarctic night would be insupportable without O. Henry and Stevenson.Or, as Roger Mifflin remarked during a passing enthusiasm for AmbroseBierce, the true noctes ambrosianae are the noctes ambrose bierceianae.
But Roger was prompt in closing Parnassus at ten o'clock. At that hourhe and Bock (the mustard-coloured terrier, named for Boccaccio) wouldmake the round of the shop, see that everything was shipshape, emptythe ash trays provided for customers, lock the front door, and turn offthe lights. Then they would retire to the den, where Mrs. Mifflin wasgenerally knitting or reading. She would brew a pot of cocoa and theywould read or talk for half an hour or so before bed. Sometimes Rogerwould take a stroll along Gissing Street before turning in. All dayspent with books has a rather exhausting effect on the mind, and heused to enjoy the fresh air sweeping up the dark Brooklyn streets,meditating some thought that had sprung from his reading, while Bocksniffed and padded along in the manner of an elderly dog at night.
While Mrs. Mifflin was away, however, Roger's routine was somewhatdifferent. After closing the shop he would return to his desk and witha furtive, shamefaced air take out from a bottom drawer an untidyfolder of notes and manuscript. This was the skeleton in his closet,his secret sin. It was the scaffolding of his book, which he had beencompiling for at least ten years, and to which he had tentativelyassigned such different titles as "Notes on Literature," "The Muse onCrutches," "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 bookhuckster, under the title of "Literature Among the Farmers," but it hadbranched out until it began to appear that (in bulk at least) Ridpathwould have to look to his linoleum laurels. The manuscript in itspresent state had neither beginning nor end, but it was growingstrenuously in the middle, and hundreds of pages were covered withRoger's minute script. The chapter on "Ars Bibliopolae," or the art ofbookselling, would be, he hoped, a classic among generations of bookvendors still unborn. Seated at his disorderly desk, caressed by acounterpane of drifting tobacco haze, he would pore over themanuscript, crossing out, interpolating, re-arguing, and then referringto volumes on his shelves. Bock would snore under the chair, and soonRoger's brain would begin to waver. In the end he would fall asleepover his papers, wake with a cramp about two o'clock, and creakirritably to a lonely bed.
All this we mention only to explain how it was that Roger was dozing athis desk about midnight, the evening after the call paid by AubreyGilbert. He was awakened by a draught of chill air passing like amountain 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 couchin the kitchen, made of a packing case that had once coffined a set ofthe Encyclopaedia Britannica.
"That's funny," said Roger to himself. "Surely I locked the door?" Hewalked to the front of the shop, switching on the cluster of lightsthat hung from the ceiling. The door was ajar, but everything elseseemed as usual. Bock, hearing his footsteps, came trotting out fromthe kitchen, his claws rattling on the bare wooden floor. He looked upwith the patient inquiry of a dog accustomed to the eccentricities ofhis patron.
"I guess I'm getting absent-minded," said Roger. "I must have left thedoor open." He closed and locked it. Then he noticed that the terrierwas sniffing in the History alcove, which was at the front of the shopon the left-hand side.
"What is it, old man?" said Roger. "Want something to read in bed?" Heturned on the light in that alcove. Everything appeared normal. Thenhe noticed a book that projected an inch or so beyond the even line ofbindings. It was a fad of Roger's to keep all his books in a flat rowon the shelves, and almost every evening at closing time he used to runhis palm along the backs of the volumes to level any irregularitiesleft by careless browsers. He put out a hand to push the book intoplace. Then he stopped.
"Queer again," he thought. "Carlyle's Oliver Cromwell! I looked forthat book last night and couldn't find it. When that professor fellowwas 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 ThanksgivingDay, with the November meeting of the Corn Cob Club scheduled for thatevening, but Mrs. Mifflin had promised to get home from Boston in timeto bake a chocolate cake for the booksellers. It was said that some ofthe members of the club were faithful in attendance more by reason ofMrs. Mifflin's chocolate cake, and the cask of cider that her brotherAndrew McGill sent down from the Sabine Farm every autumn, than onaccount of the bookish conversation.
Roger spent the morning in doing a little housecleaning, in preparationfor his wife's return. He was a trifle abashed to find how manymingled crumbs and tobacco cinders had accumulated on the dining-roomrug. He cooked himself a modest lunch of lamb chops and bakedpotatoes, and was pleased by an epigram concerning food that came intohis mind. "It's not the food you dream about that matters," he said tohimself; "it's the vittles that walk right in and become a member ofthe family." He felt that this needed a little polishing andrephrasing, but that there was a germ of wit in it. He had a habit ofencountering ideas at his solitary meals.
After this, he was busy at the sink scrubbing the dishes, when he wassurprised by feeling two very competent arms surround him, and a pinkgingham apron was thrown over his head. "Mifflin," said his wife, "howmany times have I told you to put on an apron when you wash up!"
They greeted each other with the hearty, affectionate simplicity ofthose congenially wedded in middle age. Helen Mifflin was a buxom,healthy creature, rich in good sense and good humour, well nourishedboth in mind and body. She kissed Roger's bald head, tied the apronaround his shrimpish person, and sat down on a kitchen chair to watchhim finish wiping the china. Her cheeks were cool and ruddy from thekeen air, her face lit with the tranquil satisfaction of those who havesojourned in the comfortable city of Boston.
"Well, my dear," said Roger, "this makes it a real Thanksgiving. Youlook 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 herknee, imbibing the familiar and mysterious fragrance by which dogsidentify their human friends. "I haven't even heard of a book forthree weeks. I did stop in at the Old Angle Book Shop yesterday, justto say hullo to Joe Jillings. He says all booksellers are crazy, butthat you are the craziest of the lot. He wants to know if you'rebankrupt yet."
Roger's slate-blue eyes twinkled. He hung up a cup in the china closetand lit his pipe before replying.
"What did you say?"
"I said that our shop was haunted, and mustn't be supposed to comeunder 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 gowith it. Not till then. But by the way, we're going to be haunted bya be
auteous damsel pretty soon. You remember my telling you that Mr.Chapman wants to send his daughter to work in the shop? Well, here's aletter 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 theexperiment of taking my daughter as an apprentice. Titania is really avery charming girl, and if only we can get some of the "finishingschool" nonsense out of her head she will make a fine woman. She hashad (it was my fault, not hers) the disadvantage of being brought up,or rather brought down, by having every possible want and whimgratified. Out of kindness for herself and her future husband, if sheshould 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 bookshopjob 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 herway. Of course I don't want the routine to be too hard for her, but Ido want her to get some idea of what it means to face life on one'sown. If you will pay her ten dollars a week as a beginner, and deducther 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 Cobmeeting to-morrow night, and we can make the final arrangements.
Luckily, she is very fond of books, and I really think she is lookingforward to the adventure with much anticipation. I overheard hersaying 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 tooutgrow. When I hear her say that she's got a job in a bookstore, I'llknow she's cured.
Cordially yours, GEORGE CHAPMAN.
"Well?" said Roger, as Mrs. Mifflin made no comment. "Don't you thinkit will be rather interesting to get a naive young girl's reactionstoward the problems of our tranquil existence?"
"Roger, you blessed innocent!" cried his wife. "Life will no longer betranquil with a girl of nineteen round the place. You may foolyourself, but you can't fool me. A girl of nineteen doesn't REACTtoward things. She explodes. Things don't 'react' anywhere but inBoston and in chemical laboratories. I suppose you know you're takinga human bombshell into the arsenal?"
Roger looked dubious. "I remember something in Weir of Hermiston abouta girl being 'an explosive engine,'" he said. "But I don't see thatshe can do any very great harm round here. We're both pretty wellproof against shell shock. The worst that could happen would be if shegot hold of my private copy of Fireside Conversation in the Age ofQueen Elizabeth. Remind me to lock it up somewhere, will you?"
This secret masterpiece by Mark Twain was one of the bookseller'streasures. Not even Helen had ever been permitted to read it; and shehad shrewdly judged that it was not in her line, for though she knewperfectly well where he kept it (together with his life insurancepolicy, some Liberty Bonds, an autograph letter from Charles SpencerChaplin, and a snapshot of herself taken on their honeymoon) she hadnever made any attempt to examine it.
"Well," said Helen; "Titania or no Titania, if the Corn Cobs want theirchocolate cake to-night, I must get busy. Take my suitcase upstairslike a good fellow."
A gathering of booksellers is a pleasant sanhedrim to attend. Themembers of this ancient craft bear mannerisms and earmarks just asdefinitely recognizable as those of the cloak and suit business or anyother trade. They are likely to be a little--shall we say--worn at thebindings, as becomes men who have forsaken worldly profit to pursue anoble calling ill rewarded in cash. They are possibly a trifleembittered, which is an excellent demeanour for mankind in the face ofinscrutable heaven. Long experience with publishers' salesmen makesthem suspicious of books praised between the courses of a heavy meal.
When a publisher's salesman takes you out to dinner, it is notsurprising if the conversation turns toward literature about the timethe last of the peas are being harried about the plate. But, as JerryGladfist says (he runs a shop up on Thirty-Eighth Street) thepublishers' salesmen supply a long-felt want, for they do now and thenbuy one a dinner the like of which no bookseller would otherwise belikely to commit.
"Well, gentlemen," said Roger as his guests assembled in his littlecabinet, "it's a cold evening. Pull up toward the fire. Make freewith the cider. The cake's on the table. My wife came back fromBoston specially to make it."
"Here's Mrs. Mifflin's health!" said Mr. Chapman, a quiet little manwho had a habit of listening to what he heard. "I hope she doesn'tmind 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 moviepalace," 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. "Abook's a book, even if Harold Bell Wright wrote it."
"A book's a book if you enjoy reading it," amended Meredith, from a bigFifth Avenue bookstore. "Lots of people enjoy Harold Bell Wright justas lots of people enjoy tripe. Either of them would kill me. Butlet'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 andfirst editions.
"What I mean is this," said Jerry. "We aren't literary critics. It'snone of our business to say what's good and what isn't. Our job issimply 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 theworld," said Roger warmly, "and you're the kind of guy that makes itso. I suppose you would say that it is no concern of the bookseller totry to increase the public appetite for books?"
"Appetite is too strong a word," said Jerry. "As far as books areconcerned the public is barely able to sit up and take a little liquidnourishment. Solid foods don't interest it. If you try to cram roastbeef down the gullet of an invalid you'll kill him. Let the publicalone, and thank God when it comes round to amputate any of itshard-earned cash."
"Well, take it on the lowest basis," said Roger. "I haven't any factsto go upon----"
"You never have," interjected Jerry.
"But I'd like to bet that the Trade has made more money out of Bryce'sAmerican Commonwealth than it ever did out of all Parson Wright's booksput together."
"What of it? Why shouldn't they make both?"
This preliminary tilt was interrupted by the arrival of two morevisitors, and Roger handed round mugs of cider, pointed to the cake andthe basket of pretzels, and lit his corn-cob pipe. The new arrivalswere Quincy and Fruehling; the former a clerk in the book department ofa vast drygoods store, the latter the owner of a bookshop in the Hebrewquarter 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 richlytinted cheek-bones and bushy beard, "what's the argument?"
"The usual one," said Gladfist, grinning, "Mifflin confusingmerchandise with metaphysics."
MIFFLIN--Not at all. I am simply saying that it is good business tosell only the best.
GLADFIST--Wrong again. You must select your stock according to yourcustomers. Ask Quincy here. Would there be any sense in his loadingup his shelves with Maeterlinck and Shaw when the department-storetrade wants Eleanor Porter and the Tarzan stuff? Does a country grocercarry the same cigars that are listed on the wine card of a FifthAvenue hotel? Of course not. He gets in the cigars that his tradeenjoys and is accustomed to. Bookselling must obey the ordinary rulesof commerce.
MIFFLIN--A fig for the ordinary rules of commerce! I came over here toGissing Street to get away from them. My mind would blow out its fusesif I had to a
bide by the dirty little considerations of supply anddemand. As far as I am concerned, supply CREATES demand.
GLADFIST--Still, old chap, you have to abide by the dirty littleconsideration of earning a living, unless someone has endowed you?
BENSON--Of course my line of business isn't strictly the same as youfellows'. But a thought that has often occurred to me in selling rareeditions may interest you. The customer's willingness to part with hismoney is usually in inverse ratio to the permanent benefit he expectsto 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 tobe amused than they will to be exalted. Look at the way a man shellsout five bones for a couple of theatre seats, or spends a couple ofdollars a week on cigars without thinking of it. Yet two dollars orfive dollars for a book costs him positive anguish. The mistake youfellows in the retail trade have made is in trying to persuade yourcustomers that books are necessities. Tell them they're luxuries.That'll get them! People have to work so hard in this life they're shyof necessities. A man will go on wearing a suit until it's threadbare,much sooner than smoke a threadbare cigar.
GLADFIST--Not a bad thought. You know, Mifflin here calls me amaterial-minded cynic, but by thunder, I think I'm more idealistic thanhe is. I'm no propagandist incessantly trying to cajole poor innocentcustomers 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 abookstore without the slightest idea of what they want or what is worthreading, I would disdain to take advantage of their frailty. They areabsolutely at the mercy of the salesman. They will buy whatever hetells them to. Now the honourable man, the high-minded man (by which Imean myself) is too proud to ram some shimmering stuff at them justbecause he thinks they ought to read it. Let the boobs blunder aroundand grab what they can. Let natural selection operate. I think it isfascinating to watch them, to see their helpless groping, and to studythe weird ways in which they make their choice. Usually they will buya book either because they think the jacket is attractive, or becauseit costs a dollar and a quarter instead of a dollar and a half, orbecause they say they saw a review of it. The "review" usually turnsout to be an ad. I don't think one book-buyer in a thousand knows thedifference.
MIFFLIN--Your doctrine is pitiless, base, and false! What would youthink of a physician who saw men suffering from a curable disease anddid nothing to alleviate their sufferings?
GLADFIST--Their sufferings (as you call them) are nothing to what minewould be if I stocked up with a lot of books that no one but highbrowswould buy. What would you think of a base public that would go past myshop day after day and let the high-minded occupant die of starvation?
MIFFLIN--Your ailment, Jerry, is that you conceive yourself as merely atradesman. What I'm telling you is that the bookseller is a publicservant. He ought to be pensioned by the state. The honour of hisprofession should compel him to do all he can to spread thedistribution of good stuff.
QUINCY--I think you forget how much we who deal chiefly in new booksare at the mercy of the publishers. We have to stock the new stuff, alarge proportion of which is always punk. Why it is punk, goodnessknows, because most of the bum books don't sell.
MIFFLIN--Ah, that is a mystery indeed! But I can give you a fairreason. First, because there isn't enough good stuff to go round.Second, because of the ignorance of the publishers, many of whomhonestly don't know a good book when they see it. It is a matter ofsheer heedlessness in the selection of what they intend to publish. Abig drug factory or a manufacturer of a well-known jam spends vast sumsof money on chemically assaying and analyzing the ingredients that areto go into his medicines or in gathering and selecting the fruit thatis to be stewed into jam. And yet they tell me that the most importantdepartment of a publishing business, which is the gathering andsampling of manuscripts, is the least considered and the leastremunerated. I knew a reader for one publishing house: he was a baberecently out of college who didn't know a book from a frat pin. If ajam factory employs a trained chemist, why isn't it worth a publisher'swhile to employ an expert book analyzer? There are some of them. Lookat 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 trainedexperts. They are likely to be fourflushers. We had one once at ourfactory, and as far as I could make out he never thought we were doinggood business except when we were losing money.
MIFFLIN--As far as I have been able to observe, making money is theeasiest thing in the world. All you have to do is to turn out anhonest product, something that the public needs. Then you have to letthem know that you have it, and teach them that they need it. Theywill batter down your front door in their eagerness to get it. But ifyou begin to hand them gold bricks, if you begin to sell them booksbuilt 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 shopis: a regular Fifth Avenue store, all plate glass front and marblecolumns glowing in the indirect lighting like a birchwood at full moon.We sell hundreds of dollars' worth of bunkum every day because peopleask for it; but I tell you we do it with reluctance. It's rather thecustom in our shop to scoff at the book-buying public and call themboobs, but they really want good books--the poor souls don't know howto 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 TheAmenities of Book-Collecting than I do in selling a copy of--well,Tarzan; but it's poor business to impose your own private tastes onyour customers. All you can do is to hint them along tactfully, whenyou get a chance, toward the stuff that counts.
QUINCY--You remind me of something that happened in our book departmentthe other day. A flapper came in and said she had forgotten the nameof the book she wanted, but it was something about a young man who hadbeen brought up by the monks. I was stumped. I tried her with TheCloister and the Hearth and Monastery Bells and Legends of the MonasticOrders and so on, but her face was blank. Then one of the salesgirlsoverheard us talking, and she guessed it right off the bat. Of courseit was Tarzan.
MIFFLIN--You poor simp, there was your chance to introduce her toMowgli and the bandar-log.
QUINCY--True--I didn't think of it.
MIFFLIN--I'd like to get you fellows' ideas about advertising. Therewas 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 thatit pays?
FRUEHLING--It always pays--somebody. The only question is, does it paythe man who pays for the ad?
MEREDITH--What do you mean?
FRUEHLING--Did you ever consider the problem of what I call tangentialadvertising? By that I mean advertising that benefits your rivalrather than yourself? Take an example. On Sixth Avenue there is alovely delicatessen shop, but rather expensive. Every conceivable kindof sweetmeat and relish is displayed in the brightly lit window. Whenyou look at that window it simply makes your mouth water. You decideto have something to eat. But do you get it there? Not much! You goa little farther down the street and get it at the Automat or theCrystal Lunch. The delicatessen fellow pays the overhead expense ofthat 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, wherepeople can't afford to have any but the best books. (Meredith willbear 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 ofMeredith's shop and others, and then they come to me to buy them. Ibelieve in advertising, but I believe in letting someone else pay forit.
MIFFLIN--I guess perhaps I can afford to go on riding on Meredith'sads. I hadn't thought of that. But I think I shall put a littlenotice 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 chanceto enjoy that tangential advertising, as Fruehling calls it. Why, whenour interior decorating shark puts a few volumes of a pirated Kiplingbound in crushed oilcloth or a copy of "Knock-kneed Stories," into thewindow to show off a Louis XVIII boudoir suite, display space ischarged up against my department! Last summer he asked me for"something by that Ring fellow, I forget the name," to put a punchyfinish on a layout of porch furniture. I thought perhaps he meantWagner's Nibelungen operas, and began to dig them out. Then I found hemeant Ring Lardner.
GLADFIST--There you are. I keep telling you bookselling is animpossible job for a man who loves literature. When did a booksellerever 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 thatinterests me. Take, for instance, a Coles Phillips painting for somebrand of silk stockings. Of course the high lights of the picture arecunningly focussed on the stockings of the eminently beautiful lady;but there is always something else in the picture--an automobile or acountry house or a Morris chair or a parasol--which makes it just aseffective an ad for those goods as it is for the stockings. Every nowand then Phillips sticks a book into his paintings, and I expect theFifth Avenue book trade benefits by it. A book that fits the mind aswell as a silk stocking does the ankle will be sure to sell.
MIFFLIN--You are all crass materialists. I tell you, books are thedepositories of the human spirit, which is the only thing in this worldthat 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 Cobfraternity grinned at each other. Gladfist cleaned his pipe and pouredout some more cider. "He's off on his hobby," he chuckled. "I lovebaiting him."
"Speaking of Carlyle's Cromwell," said Fruehling, "that's a book Idon't often hear asked for. But a fellow came in the other day huntingfor a copy, and to my chagrin I didn't have one. I rather pride myselfon keeping that sort of thing in stock. So I called up Brentano's tosee if I could pick one up, and they told me they had just sold theonly copy they had. Somebody must have been boosting Thomas! Maybehe'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 ofCromwell was on the shelf because I saw it there last night. It's notthere now."
"That's nothing," said Quincy. "You know how people come into asecond-hand store, see a book they take a fancy to but don't feel likebuying just then, and tuck it away out of sight or on some other shelfwhere they think no one else will spot it, but they'll be able to findit when they can afford it. Probably someone's done that with yourCromwell."
"Maybe, but I doubt it," said Mifflin. "Mrs. Mifflin says she didn'tsell it this evening. I woke her up to ask her. She was dozing overher knitting at the desk. I guess she's tired after her trip."
"I'm sorry to miss the Carlyle quotation," said Benson. "What was thegist?"
"I think I've got it jotted down in a notebook," said Roger, huntingalong a shelf. "Yes, here it is." He read aloud:
"The works of a man, bury them under what guano-mountains and obsceneowl-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 greatexactness added to the Eternities, remains forever a new divine portionof the Sum of Things.
"Now, my friends, the bookseller is one of the keys in that universaladding machine, because he aids in the cross-fertilization of men andbooks. His delight in his calling doesn't need to be stimulated evenby the bright shanks of a Coles Phillips picture.
"Roger, my boy," said Gladfist, "your innocent enthusiasm makes methink of Tom Daly's favourite story about the Irish priest who wasrebuking his flock for their love of whisky. 'Whisky,' he said, 'isthe bane of this congregation. Whisky, that steals away a man'sbrains. Whisky, that makes you shoot at landlords--and not hit them!'Even so, my dear Roger, your enthusiasm makes you shoot at truth andnever 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 berelieved of her post. I vote we adjourn early. Your conversation isalways delightful, though I am sometimes a bit uncertain as to theconclusions. My daughter is going to be a bookseller, and I shall lookforward to hearing her views on the business."
As the guests made their way out through the shop, Mr. Chapman drewRoger aside. "It's perfectly all right about sending Titania?" heasked.
"Absolutely," said Roger. "When does she want to come?"
"Is to-morrow too soon?"
"The sooner the better. We've got a little spare room upstairs thatshe can have. I've got some ideas of my own about furnishing it forher. Send her round to-morrow afternoon."