"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 acc.u.mulated 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 ap.r.o.n was thrown over his head. "Mifflin," said his wife, "how many times have I told you to put on an ap.r.o.n when you wash up!"
They greeted each other with the hearty, affectionate simplicity of those congenially wedded in middle age. Helen Mifflin 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 ap.r.o.n 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. t.i.tania 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 antic.i.p.ation. 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 bombsh.e.l.l into the a.r.s.enal?"
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 sh.e.l.l 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; "t.i.tania or no t.i.tania, 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 n.o.ble 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 a.s.sembled 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 appet.i.te for books?"
"Appet.i.te 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 G.o.d 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."