Books: The Haunted Bookshop
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Christopher Morley >> The Haunted Bookshop
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"What on earth is it?" she asked.
"Only Archy," he said, and began to read aloud--
down in a wine vault underneath the city
two old men were sitting they were drinking booze
torn were their garments hair and beards were gritty
one had an overcoat but hardly any shoes
overhead the street cars through the streets were running
filled with happy people going home to christmas
in the adirondacks the hunters all were gunning
big ships were sailing down by the isthmus
in came a little tot for to kiss her granny
such a little totty she could scarcely tottle
saying kiss me grandpa kiss your little nanny
but the old man beaned her with a whisky bottle.
outside the snowflakes began for to flutter
far at sea the ships were sailing with the seamen
not another word did angel nanny utter
her grandsire chuckled and pledged the whisky demon
up spake the second man he was worn and weary
tears washed his face which otherwise was pasty
she loved her parents who commuted on the erie
brother im afraid you struck a trifle hasty
she came to see you all her pretty duds on
bringing christmas posies from her mothers garden
riding in the tunnel underneath the hudson
brother was it rum caused your heart to harden----
"What on earth is there funny in that?" said Mrs. Mifflin.
"Poor little lamb, I think it was terrible."
"There's more of it," cried Roger, and opened his mouth to continue.
"No more, thank you," said Helen. "There ought to be a fine
for using the meter of Love in the Valley that way. I'm going
out to market so if the bell rings you'll have to answer it."
Roger added the Archy scrapbook to Miss Titania's shelf, and went
on browsing over the volumes he had collected.
"The Nigger of the Narcissus," he said to himself, "for even
if she doesn't read the story perhaps she'll read the preface,
which not marble nor the monuments of princes will outlive.
Dickens' Christmas Stories to introduce her to Mrs. Lirriper,
the queen of landladies. Publishers tell me that Norfolk Street,
Strand, is best known for the famous literary agent that has his
office there, but I wonder how many of them know that that was
where Mrs. Lirriper had her immortal lodgings? The Notebooks
of Samuel Butler, just to give her a little intellectual jazz.
The Wrong Box, because it's the best farce in the language.
Travels with a Donkey, to show her what good writing is like.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to give her a sense of pity
for human woes--wait a minute, though: that's a pretty broad book for
young ladies. I guess we'll put it aside and see what else there is.
Some of Mr. Mosher's catalogues: fine! they'll show her the true
spirit of what one book-lover calls biblio-bliss. Walking-Stick
Papers--yes, there are still good essayists running around. A bound
file of The Publishers' Weekly to give her a smack of trade matters.
Jo's Boys in case she needs a little relaxation. The Lays
of Ancient Rome and Austin Dobson to show her some good poetry.
I wonder if they give them The Lays to read in school nowadays?
I have a horrible fear they are brought up on the battle of Salamis
and the brutal redcoats of '76. And now we'll be exceptionally subtle:
we'll stick in a Robert Chambers to see if she falls
for it."
He viewed the shelf with pride. "Not bad," he said to himself.
"I'll just add this Leonard Merrick, Whispers about Women, to amuse her.
I bet that title will start her guessing. Helen will say I ought
to have included the Bible, but I'll omit it on purpose, just to see
whether the girl misses it."
With typical male curiosity he pulled out the bureau drawers to see
what disposition his wife had made of them, and was pleased to find
a little muslin bag of lavender dispersing a quiet fragrance in each.
"Very nice," he remarked. "Very nice indeed! About the only thing
missing is an ashtray. If Miss Titania is as modern as some of them,
that'll be the first thing she'll call for. And maybe a copy
of Ezra Pound's poems. I do hope she's not what Helen calls
a bolshevixen."
There was nothing bolshevik about a glittering limousine that drew up
at the corner of Gissing and Swinburne streets early that afternoon.
A chauffeur in green livery opened the door, lifted out a suitcase
of beautiful brown leather, and gave a respectful hand to the vision
that emerged from depths of lilac-coloured upholstery.
"Where do you want me to carry the bag, miss?"
"This is the bitter parting," replied Miss Titania. "I don't want
you to know my address, Edwards. Some of my mad friends might worm
it out of you, and I don't want them coming down and bothering me.
I am going to be very busy with literature. I'll walk the rest of
the way."
Edwards saluted with a grin--he worshipped the original young heiress--
and returned to his wheel.
"There's one thing I want you to do for me," said Titania.
"Call up my father and tell him I'm on the job."
"Yes, miss," said Edwards, who would have run the limousine into
a government motor truck if she had ordered it.
Miss Chapman's small gloved hand descended into an interesting
purse that was cuffed to her wrist with a bright little chain.
She drew out a nickel--it was characteristic of her that it was
a very bright and engaging looking nickel--and handed it gravely
to her charioteer. Equally gravely he saluted, and the car,
after moving through certain dignified arcs, swam swiftly away down
Thackeray Boulevard.
Titania, after making sure that Edwards was out of sight,
turned up Gissing Street with a fluent pace and an observant eye.
A small boy cried, "Carry your bag, lady?" and she was about to agree,
but then remembered that she was now engaged at ten dollars a week
and waved him away. Our readers would feel a justifiable grudge
if we did not attempt a description of the young lady, and we
will employ the few blocks of her course along Gissing Street for
this purpose.
Walking behind her, the observer, by the time she had reached
Clemens Place, would have seen that she was faultlessly tailored
in genial tweeds; that her small brown boots were sheltered by spats
of that pale tan complexion exhibited by Pullman porters on the
Pennsylvania Railroad; that her person was both slender and vigorous;
that her shoulders were carrying a sumptuous fur of the colour
described by the trade as nutria, or possibly opal smoke.
The word chinchilla would have occurred irresistibly to this observer
from behind; he might also, if he were the father of a family,
have had a fleeting vision of many autographed stubs in a check book.
The general impression that he would have retained, had he turned aside
at Clemens Place, would be "expensive, but worth the expense."
It is more likely, however, that the student of phenomena would
have continued along Gissing Street to the next corner, being that
of Hazlitt Street. Taking advantage of opportunity, he would
overtake the lady on the pavement, with a secret, sidelong glance.
If he were wise, he would pass her on the right side where her tilted
bonnet permitted a wider angle of vision. He would catch a glimpse
of cheek and chin belonging to the category known (and rightly)
as adorable; hair that held sunlight through the dullest day;
even a small platinum wrist watch that might pardonably be excused,
in its exhilarating career, for beating a trifle fast.
Among the greyish furs he would note a bunch of such violets as never
bloom in the crude springtime, but reserve themselves for November
and the plate glass windows of Fifth Avenue.
It is probable that whatever the errand of this spectator he would
have continued along Gissing Street a few paces farther.
Then, with calculated innocence, he would have halted halfway up
the block that leads to the Wordsworth Avenue "L," and looked
backward with carefully simulated irresolution, as though considering
some forgotten matter. With apparently unseeing eyes he would have
scanned the bright pedestrian, and caught the full impact of her
rich blue gaze. He would have seen a small resolute face rather
vivacious in effect, yet with a quaint pathos of youth and eagerness.
He would have noted the cheeks lit with excitement and rapid
movement in the bracing air. He would certainly have noted
the delicate contrast of the fur of the wild nutria with the soft
V of her bare throat. Then, to his surprise, he would have seen
this attractive person stop, examine her surroundings, and run
down some steps into a rather dingy-looking second-hand bookshop.
He would have gone about his affairs with a new and surprised
conviction that the Almighty had the borough of Brooklyn under His
especial care.
Roger, who had conceived a notion of some rather peevish foundling
of the Ritz-Carlton lobbies and Central Park riding academies,
was agreeably amazed by the sweet simplicity of the young lady.
"Is this Mr. Mifflin?" she said, as he advanced all agog from his
smoky corner.
"Miss Chapman?" he replied, taking her bag. "Helen!" he called.
"Miss Titania is here."
She looked about the sombre alcoves of the shop.
"I do think it's adorable of you to take me in," she said.
"Dad has told me so much about you. He says I'm impossible.
I suppose this is the literature he talks about. I want to know
all about it."
"And here's Bock!" she cried. "Dad says he's the greatest dog
in the world, named after Botticelli or somebody. I've brought
him a present. It's in my bag. Nice old Bocky!"
Bock, who was unaccustomed to spats, was examining them after his
own fashion.
"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Mifflin. "We are delighted to see you.
I hope you'll be happy with us, but I rather doubt it. Mr. Mifflin is
a hard man to get along with."
"Oh, I'm sure of it!" cried Titania. "I mean, I'm sure I shall
be happy! You mustn't believe a word of what Dad says about me.
I'm crazy about books. I don't see how you can bear to sell them.
I brought these violets for you, Mrs. Mifflin."
"How perfectly sweet of you," said Helen, captivated already.
"Come along, we'll put them right in water. I'll show you
your room."
Roger heard them moving about overhead. It suddenly occurred
to him that the shop was rather a dingy place for a young girl.
"I wish I had thought to get in a cash register," he mused.
"She'll think I'm terribly unbusiness-like."
"Now," said Mrs. Mifflin, as she and Titania came downstairs again,
"I'm making some pastry, so I'm going to turn you over to your employer.
He can show you round the shop and tell you where all the books are."
"Before we begin," said Titania, "just let me give Bock
his present." She showed a large package of tissue paper and,
unwinding innumerable layers, finally disclosed a stalwart bone.
"I was lunching at Sherry's, and I made the head waiter give me this.
He was awfully amused."
"Come along into the kitchen and give it to him," said Helen.
"He'll be your friend for life."
"What an adorable kennel!" cried Titania, when she saw
the remodelled packing-case that served Bock as a retreat.
The bookseller's ingenious carpentry had built it into the similitude
of a Carnegie library, with the sign READING-ROOM over the door;
and he had painted imitation book-shelves along the interior.
"You'll get used to Mr. Mifflin after a while," said Helen amusedly.
"He spent all one winter getting that kennel fixed to his liking.
You might have thought he was going to live in it instead of Bock.
All the titles that he painted in there are books that have dogs in them,
and a lot of them he made up."
Titania insisted on getting down to peer inside. Bock was much
flattered at this attention from the new planet that had swum
into his kennel.
"Gracious!" she said, "here's 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Canine.'
I do think that's clever!"
"Oh, there are a lot more," said Helen. "The works of Bonar Law,
and Bohn's 'Classics,' and 'Catechisms on Dogma' and goodness knows what.
If Roger paid half as much attention to business as he does to jokes
of that sort, we'd be rich. Now, you run along and have a look at
the shop."
Titania found the bookseller at his desk. "Here I am, Mr. Mifflin,"
she said. "See, I brought a nice sharp pencil along with me to make
out sales slips. I've been practicing sticking it in my hair.
I can do it quite nicely now. I hope you have some of those big
red books with all the carbon paper in them and everything.
I've been watching the girls up at Lord and Taylor's make them out, and I
think they're fascinating. And you must teach me to run the elevator.
I'm awfully keen about elevators."
"Bless me," said Roger, "You'll find this very different from Lord
and Taylor's! We haven't any elevators, or any sales slips, or even
a cash register. We don't wait on customers unless they ask us to.
They come in and browse round, and if they find anything they want
they come back here to my desk and ask about it. The price is marked
in every book in red pencil. The cash-box is here on this shelf.
This is the key hanging on this little hook. I enter each sale
in this ledger. When you sell a book you must write it down here,
and the price paid for it."
"But suppose it's charged?" said Titania.
"No charge accounts. Everything is cash. If someone comes in to
sell books, you must refer him to me. You mustn't be surprised to see
people drop in here and spend several hours reading. Lots of them
look on this as a kind of club. I hope you don't mind the smell
of tobacco, for almost all the men that come here smoke in the shop.
You see, I put ash trays around for them."
"I love tobacco smell," said Titania. "Daddy's library at
home smells something like this, but not quite so strong.
And I want to see the worms, bookworms you know. Daddy said you
had lots of them."
"You'll see them, all right," said Roger, chuckling. "They come
in and out. To-morrow I'll show you how my stock is arranged.
It'll take you quite a while to get familiar with it.
Until then I just want you to poke around and see what there is,
until you know the shelves so well you could put your hand on any
given book in the dark. That's a game my wife and I used to play.
We would turn off all the lights at night, and I would call out
the title of a book and see how near she could come to finding it.
Then I would take a turn. When we came more than six inches away from
it we would have to pay a forfeit. It's great fun."
"What larks we'll have," cried Titania. "I do think this
is a cunning place!"
"This is the bulletin board, where I put up notices about books
that interest me. Here's a card I've just been writing."
Roger drew from his pocket a square of cardboard and affixed it
to the board with a thumbtack. Titania read:
THE BOOK THAT SHOULD HAVE PREVENTED THE WAR
Now that the fighting is over is a good time to read Thomas Hardy's
The Dynasts. I don't want to sell it, because it is one of the
greatest treasures I own. But if any one will guarantee to read all
three volumes, and let them sink into his mind, I'm willing to lend them.
If enough thoughtful Germans had read The Dynasts before July,
1914, there would have been no war.
If every delegate to the Peace Conference could be made to read it
before the sessions begin, there will be no more wars.
R. MIFFLIN.
"Dear me," said Titania, "Is it so good as all that? Perhaps I'd
better read it."
"It is so good that if I knew any way of doing so I'd insist on Mr. Wilson
reading it on his voyage to France. I wish I could get it onto his ship.
My, what a book! It makes one positively ill with pity and terror.
Sometimes I wake up at night and look out of the window and imagine
I hear Hardy laughing. I get him a little mixed up with the Deity,
I fear. But he's a bit too hard for you to tackle."
Titania was puzzled, and said nothing. But her busy mind made
a note of its own: Hardy, hard to read, makes one ill, try it.
"What did you think of the books I put in your room?" said Roger.
He had vowed to wait until she made some comment unsolicited,
but he could not restrain himself.
"In my room?" she said. "Why, I'm sorry, I never noticed them!"
Chapter IV
The Disappearing Volume
"Well, my dear," said Roger after supper that evening, "I think perhaps
we had better introduce Miss Titania to our custom of reading aloud."
"Perhaps it would bore her?" said Helen. "You know it isn't
everybody that likes being read to."
"Oh, I should love it!" exclaimed Titania. "I don't think anybody
ever read to me, that is not since I was a child."
"Suppose we leave you to look after the shop," said Helen to Roger,
in a teasing mood, "and I'll take Titania out to the movies.
I think Tarzan is still running."
Whatever private impulses Miss Chapman may have felt, she saw by the
bookseller's downcast face that a visit to Tarzan would break his heart,
and she was prompt to disclaim any taste for the screen classic.
"Dear me," she said; "Tarzan--that's all that nature stuff
by John Burroughs; isn't it? Oh, Mrs. Mifflin, I think it
would be very tedious. Let's have Mr. Mifflin read to us.
I'll get down my knitting bag."
"You mustn't mind being interrupted," said Helen. "When anybody
rings the bell Roger has to run out and tend the shop."
"You must let me do it," said Titania. "I want to earn my wages,
you know."
"All right," said Mrs. Mifflin; "Roger, you settle Miss Chapman
in the den and give her something to look at while we do the dishes."
But Roger was all on fire to begin the reading. "Why don't we
postpone the dishes," he said, "just to celebrate?"
"Let me help," insisted Titania. "I should think washing up would
be great fun."
"No, no, not on your first evening," said Helen. "Mr. Mifflin
and I will finish them in a jiffy."
So Roger poked up the coal fire in the den, disposed the chairs,
and gave Titania a copy of Sartor Resartus to look at.
He then vanished into the kitchen with his wife, whence Titania
heard the cheerful clank of crockery in a dishpan and the splashing
of hot water. "The best thing about washing up," she heard Roger say,
"is that it makes one's hands so clean, a novel sensation for a
second-hand bookseller."
She gave Sartor Resartus what is graphically described as a "once over,"
and then seeing the morning Times lying on the table, picked it up,
as she had not read it. Her eye fell upon the column headed
LOST AND FOUND
Fifty cents an agate line
and as she had recently lost a little pearl brooch, she ran hastily
through it. She chuckled a little over
LOST--Hotel Imperial lavatory, set of teeth. Call or communicate Steel,
134 East 43 St. Reward, no questions asked.
Then she saw this:
LOST--Copy of Thomas Carlyle's "Oliver Cromwell,"
between Gissing Street, Brooklyn, and the Octagon Hotel. If found
before midnight, Tuesday, Dec. 3, return to assistant chef, Octagon Hotel.
"Why" she exclaimed, "Gissing Street--that's here!
And what a funny kind of book for an assistant chef to read.
No wonder their lunches have been so bad lately!"
When Roger and Helen rejoined her in the den a few minutes later she
showed the bookseller the advertisement. He was very much excited.
"That's a funny thing," he said. "There's something queer
about that book. Did I tell you about it? Last Tuesday--
I know it was then because it was the evening young Gilbert was here--
a man with a beard came in asking for it, and it wasn't on the shelf.
Then the next night, Wednesday, I was up very late writing, and fell
asleep at my desk. I must have left the front door ajar, because I
was waked up by the draught, and when I went to close the door I saw
the book sticking out a little beyond the others, in its usual place.
And last night, when the Corn Cobs were here, I went out to look up
a quotation in it, and it was gone again."
"Perhaps the assistant chef stole it?" said Titania.
"But if so, why the deuce would he advertise having done so?"
asked Roger.
"Well, if he did steal it," said Helen, "I wish him joy of it.
I tried to read it once, you talked so much about it, and I found it
dreadfully dull."
"If he did steal it," cried the bookseller, "I'm perfectly delighted.
It shows that my contention is right: people DO really care
for good books. If an assistant chef is so fond of good books
that he has to steal them, the world is safe for democracy.
Usually the only books any one wants to steal are sheer piffle,
like Making Life Worth While by Douglas Fairbanks or Mother Shipton's
Book of Oracles. I don't mind a man stealing books if he steals
good ones!"
"You see the remarkable principles that govern this business,"
said Helen to Titania. They sat down by the fire and took up
their knitting while the bookseller ran out to see if the volume
had by any chance returned to his shelves.
"Is it there?" said Helen, when he came back.
"No," said Roger, and picked up the advertisement again.
"I wonder why he wants it returned before midnight on Tuesday?"
"So he can read it in bed, I guess," said Helen. "Perhaps he suffers
from insomnia."
"It's a darn shame he lost it before he had a chance to read it.
I'd like to have known what he thought of it. I've got a great mind
to go up and call on him."
"Charge it off to profit and loss and forget about it," said Helen.
"How about that reading aloud?"
Roger ran his eye along his private shelves, and pulled down
a well-worn volume.
"Now that Thanksgiving is past," he said, "my mind always turns
to Christmas, and Christmas means Charles Dickens. My dear,
would it bore you if we had a go at the old Christmas Stories?"
Mrs. Mifflin held up her hands in mock dismay. "He reads them to me every
year at this time," she said to Titania. "Still, they're worth it.
I know good old Mrs. Lirriper better than I do most of my friends."
"What is it, the Christmas Carol?" said Titania. "We had to read
that in school."
"No," said Roger; "the other stories, infinitely better.
Everybody gets the Carol dinned into them until they're weary of it,
but no one nowadays seems to read the others. I tell you,
Christmas wouldn't be Christmas to me if I didn't read these tales
over again every year. How homesick they make one for the good old
days of real inns and real beefsteak and real ale drawn in pewter.
My dears, sometimes when I am reading Dickens I get a vision of rare
sirloin with floury boiled potatoes and plenty of horse-radish, set on a
shining cloth not far from a blaze of English coal----"
"He's an incorrigible visionary," said Mrs. Mifflin. "To hear him
talk you might think no one had had a square meal since Dickens died.
You might think that all landladies died with Mrs. Lirriper."
"Very ungrateful of him," said Titania. "I'm sure I couldn't ask
for better potatoes, or a nicer hostess, than I've found in Brooklyn."
"Well, well," said Roger. "You are right, of course. And yet
something went out of the world when Victorian England vanished,
something that will never come again. Take the stagecoach drivers,
for instance. What a racy, human type they were! And what have we
now to compare with them? Subway guards? Taxicab drivers? I have
hung around many an all-night lunchroom to hear the chauffeurs talk.
But they are too much on the move, you can't get the picture of them
the way Dickens could of his types. You can't catch that sort
of thing in a snapshot, you know: you have to have a time exposure.
I'll grant you, though, that lunchroom food is mighty good. The best
place to eat is always a counter where the chauffeurs congregate.
They get awfully hungry, you see, driving round in the cold,
and when they want food they want it hot and tasty. There's a little
hash-alley called Frank's, up on Broadway near 77th, where I guess
the ham and eggs and French fried is as good as any Mr. Pickwick
ever ate."
"I must get Edwards to take me there," said Titania.
"Edwards is our chauffeur. I've been to the Ansonia for tea,
that's near there."
"Better keep away," said Helen. "When Roger comes home from those
places he smells so strong of onions it brings tears to my eyes."
"We've just been talking about an assistant chef," said Roger;
"that suggests that I read you Somebody's Luggage, which is all about
a head waiter. I have often wished I could get a job as a waiter
or a bus boy, just to learn if there really are any such head
waiters nowadays. You know there are all sorts of jobs I'd like to have,
just to fructify my knowledge of human nature and find out whether
life is really as good as literature. I'd love to be a waiter,
a barber, a floorwalker----"
"Roger, my dear," said Helen, "why don't you get on with the reading?"
Roger knocked out his pipe, turned Bock out of his chair, and sat
down with infinite relish to read the memorable character sketch
of Christopher, the head waiter, which is dear to every lover of taverns.
"The writer of these humble lines being a Waiter," he began.
The knitting needles flashed with diligence, and the dog by
the fender stretched himself out in the luxuriant vacancy of mind
only known to dogs surrounded by a happy group of their friends.
And Roger, enjoying himself enormously, and particularly pleased
by the chuckles of his audience, was approaching the ever-delightful
items of the coffee-room bill which is to be found about ten pages
on in the first chapter--how sad it is that hotel bills are not
so rendered in these times--when the bell in the shop clanged.
Picking up his pipe and matchbox, and grumbling "It's always the way,"
he hurried out of the room.
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