Books: The Haunted Bookshop
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Christopher Morley >> The Haunted Bookshop
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He was agreeably surprised to find that his caller was the young
advertising man, Aubrey Gilbert.
"Hullo!" he said. "I've been saving something for you.
It's a quotation from Joseph Conrad about advertising."
"Good enough," said Aubrey. "And I've got something for you.
You were so nice to me the other evening I took the liberty of
bringing you round some tobacco. Here's a tin of Blue-Eyed Mixture,
it's my favourite. I hope you'll like it."
"Bully for you. Perhaps I ought to let you off the Conrad quotation
since you're so kind."
"Not a bit. I suppose it's a knock. Shoot!" The bookseller
led the way back to his desk, where he rummaged among the litter
and finally found a scrap of paper on which he had written:
Being myself animated by feelings of affection toward my fellowmen,
I am saddened by the modern system of advertising. Whatever evidence
it offers of enterprise, ingenuity, impudence, and resource
in certain individuals, it proves to my mind the wide prevalence
of that form of mental degradation which is called gullibility.
JOSEPH CONRAD.
"What do you think of that?" said Roger. "You'll find
that in the story called The Anarchist."
"I think less than nothing of it," said Aubrey. "As your friend
Don Marquis observed the other evening, an idea isn't always
to be blamed for the people who believe in it. Mr. Conrad has been
reading some quack ads, that's all. Because there are fake ads,
that doesn't condemn the principle of Publicity. But look here,
what I really came round to see you for is to show you this.
It was in the Times this morning."
He pulled out of his pocket a clipping of the LOST insertion
to which Roger's attention had already been drawn.
"Yes, I've just seen it," said Roger. "I missed the book from
my shelves, and I believe someone must have stolen it."
"Well, now, I want to tell you something," said Aubrey. "To-night I
had dinner at the Octagon with Mr. Chapman." "Is that so?" said Roger.
"You know his daughter's here now."
"So he told me. It's rather interesting how it all works out.
You see, after you told me the other day that Miss Chapman was
coming to work for you, that gave me an idea. I knew her father
would be specially interested in Brooklyn, on that account,
and it suggested to me an idea for a window-display campaign here
in Brooklyn for the Daintybits Products. You know we handle all his
sales promotion campaigns. Of course I didn't let on that I knew
about his daughter coming over here, but he told me about it himself
in the course of our talk. Well, here's what I'm getting at.
We had dinner in the Czecho-Slovak Grill, up on the fourteenth floor,
and going up in the elevator I saw a man in a chef's uniform
carrying a book. I looked over his shoulder to see what it was.
I thought of course it would be a cook-book. It was a copy of
Oliver Cromwell."
"So he found it again, eh? I must go and have a talk with that chap.
If he's a Carlyle fan I'd like to know him."
"Wait a minute. I had seen the LOST ad in the paper this morning,
because I always look over that column. Often it gives me
ideas for advertising stunts. If you keep an eye on the things
people are anxious to get back, you know what they really prize,
and if you know what they prize you can get a line on what goods
ought to be advertised more extensively. This was the first time I
had ever noticed a LOST ad for a book, so I thought to myself "the
book business is coming up." Well, when I saw the chef with the book
in his hand, I said to him jokingly, "I see you found it again."
He was a foreign-looking fellow, with a big beard, which is unusual
for a chef, because I suppose it's likely to get in the soup.
He looked at me as though I'd run a carving knife into him, almost scared
me the way he looked. "Yes, yes," he said, and shoved the book out
of sight under his arm. He seemed half angry and half frightened,
so I thought maybe he had no right to be riding in the passenger
elevator and was scared someone would report him to the manager.
Just as we were getting to the fourteenth floor I said to him in
a whisper, "It's all right, old chap, I'm not going to report you."
I give you my word he looked more scared than before. He went
quite white. I got off at the fourteenth, and he followed me out.
I thought he was going to speak to me, but Mr. Chapman was there
in the lobby, and he didn't have a chance. But I noticed that
he watched me into the grill room as though I was his last chance
of salvation."
"I guess the poor devil was scared you'd report him to the police
for stealing the book," said Roger. "Never mind, let him have it."
"Did he steal it?"
"I haven't a notion. But somebody did, because it disappeared
from here."
"Well, now, wait a minute. Here's the queer part of it.
I didn't think anything more about it, except that it was a funny
coincidence my seeing him after having noticed that ad in the paper.
I had a long talk with Mr. Chapman, and we discussed some plans
for a prune and Saratoga chip campaign, and I showed him some
suggested copy I had prepared. Then he told me about his daughter,
and I let on that I knew you. I left the Octagon about eight
o'clock, and I thought I'd run over here on the subway
just to show you the LOST notice and give you this tobacco.
And when I got off the subway at Atlantic Avenue, who should I
see but friend chef again. He got off the same train I did.
He had on civilian clothes then, of course, and when he was out
of his white uniform and pancake hat I recognized him right off.
Who do you suppose it was?"
"Can't imagine," said Roger, highly interested by this time.
"Why, the professor-looking guy who came in to ask for the book
the first night I was here."
"Humph! Well, he must be keen about Carlyle, because he was horribly
disappointed that evening when he asked for the book and I couldn't
find it. I remember how he insisted that I MUST have it, and I hunted
all through the History shelves to make sure it hadn't got misplaced.
He said that some friend of his had seen it here, and he had come
right round to buy it. I told him he could certainly get a copy
at the Public Library, and he said that wouldn't do at all."
"Well, I think he's nuts," said Aubrey, "because I'm damn
sure he followed me down the street after I left the subway.
I stopped in at the drug store on the corner to get some matches,
and when I came out, there he was underneath the lamp-post."
"If it was a modern author, instead of Carlyle," said Roger,
"I'd say it was some publicity stunt pulled off by the publishers.
You know they go to all manner of queer dodges to get an author's name
in print. But Carlyle's copyrights expired long ago, so I don't see
the game."
"I guess he's picketing your place to try and steal the formula
for eggs Samuel Butler," said Aubrey, and they both laughed.
"You'd better come in and meet my wife and Miss Chapman," said Roger.
The young man made some feeble demur, but it was obvious to the
bookseller that he was vastly elated at the idea of making Miss
Chapman's acquaintance.
"Here's a friend of mine," said Roger, ushering Aubrey into the little
room where Helen and Titania were still sitting by the fire.
"Mrs. Mifflin, Mr. Aubrey Gilbert, Miss Chapman, Mr. Gilbert."
Aubrey was vaguely aware of the rows of books, of the shining coals,
of the buxom hostess and the friendly terrier; but with the intense focus
of an intelligent young male mind these were all merely appurtenances
to the congenial spectacle of the employee. How quickly a young man's
senses assemble and assimilate the data that are really relevant!
Without seeming even to look in that direction he had performed the most
amazing feat of lightning calculation known to the human faculties.
He had added up all the young ladies of his acquaintance,
and found the sum total less than the girl before him.
He had subtracted the new phenomenon from the universe as he knew it,
including the solar system and the advertising business,
and found the remainder a minus quantity. He had multiplied
the contents of his intellect by a factor he had no reason to assume
"constant," and was startled at what teachers call (I believe)
the "product." And he had divided what was in the left-hand
armchair into his own career, and found no room for a quotient.
All of which transpired in the length of time necessary for Roger
to push forward another chair.
With the politeness desirable in a well-bred youth, Aubrey's first
instinct was to make himself square with the hostess.
Resolutely he occluded blue eyes, silk shirtwaist, and admirable
chin from his mental vision.
"It's awfully good of you to let me come in," he said to Mrs. Mifflin.
"I was here the other evening and Mr. Mifflin insisted on my staying
to supper with him."
"I'm very glad to see you," said Helen. "Roger told me about you.
I hope he didn't poison you with any of his outlandish dishes.
Wait till he tries you with brandied peaches a la Harold
Bell Wright."
Aubrey uttered some genial reassurance, still making the supreme
sacrifice of keeping his eyes away from where (he felt) they belonged.
"Mr. Gilbert has just had a queer experience," said Roger.
"Tell them about it."
In the most reckless way, Aubrey permitted himself to be
impaled upon a direct and interested flash of blue lightning.
"I was having dinner with your father at the Octagon."
The high tension voltage of that bright blue current felt like ohm
sweet ohm, but Aubrey dared not risk too much of it at once.
Fearing to blow out a fuse, he turned in panic to Mrs. Mifflin.
"You see," he explained, "I write a good deal of Mr. Chapman's advertising
for him. We had an appointment to discuss some business matters.
We're planning a big barrage on prunes."
"Dad works much too hard, don't you think?" said Titania.
Aubrey welcomed this as a pleasant avenue of discussion leading into
the parkland of Miss Chapman's family affairs; but Roger insisted
on his telling the story of the chef and the copy of Cromwell.
"And he followed you here?" exclaimed Titania. "What fun!
I had no idea the book business was so exciting."
"Better lock the door to-night, Roger," said Mrs. Mifflin,
"or he may walk off with a set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica."
"Why, my dear," said Roger, "I think this is grand news.
Here's a man, in a humble walk of life, so keen about good books
that he even pickets a bookstore on the chance of swiping some.
It's the most encouraging thing I've ever heard of. I must write to
the Publishers' Weekly about it."
"Well," said Aubrey, "you mustn't let me interrupt your little party."
"You're not interrupting," said Roger. "We were only reading aloud.
Do you know Dickens' Christmas Stories?"
"I'm afraid I don't."
"Suppose we go on reading, shall we?"
"Please do."
"Yes, do go on," said Titania. "Mr. Mifflin was just reading
about a most adorable head waiter in a London chop house."
Aubrey begged permission to light his pipe, and Roger picked up the book.
"But before we read the items of the coffee-room bill," he said,
"I think it only right that we should have a little refreshment.
This passage should never be read without something to accompany it.
My dear, what do you say to a glass of sherry all round?"
"It is sad to have to confess it," said Mrs. Mifflin to Titania,
"Mr. Mifflin can never read Dickens without having something to drink.
I think the sale of Dickens will fall off terribly when prohibition
comes in."
"I once took the trouble to compile a list of the amount of liquor
drunk in Dickens' works," said Roger, "and I assure you the total
was astounding: 7,000 hogsheads, I believe it was. Calculations of
that sort are great fun. I have always intended to write a little
essay on the rainstorms in the stories of Robert Louis Stevenson.
You see R. L. S. was a Scot, and well acquainted with wet weather.
Excuse me a moment, I'll just run down cellar and get up
a bottle."
Roger left the room, and they heard his steps passing down into
the cellar. Bock, after the manner of dogs, followed him.
The smells of cellars are a rare treat to dogs, especially ancient
Brooklyn cellars which have a cachet all their own. The cellar
of the Haunted Bookshop was, to Bock, a fascinating place,
illuminated by a warm glow from the furnace, and piled high with
split packing-cases which Roger used as kindling. From below came
the rasp of a shovel among coal, and the clear, musical slither
as the lumps were thrown from the iron scoop onto the fire.
Just then the bell rang in the shop.
"Let me go," said Titania, jumping up.
"Can't I?" said Aubrey.
"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Mifflin, laying down her knitting. "Neither of
you knows anything about the stock. Sit down and be comfortable.
I'll be right back."
Aubrey and Titania looked at each other with a touch of embarrassment.
"Your father sent you his--his kind regards," said Aubrey.
That was not what he had intended to say, but somehow he could not
utter the word. "He said not to read all the books at once."
Titania laughed. "How funny that you should run into him just
when you were coming here. He's a duck, isn't he?"
"Well, you see I only know him in a business way, but he certainly
is a corker. He believes in advertising, too."
"Are you crazy about books?"
"Why, I never really had very much to do with them. I'm afraid
you'll think I'm terribly ignorant----"
"Not at all. I'm awfully glad to meet someone who doesn't think
it's a crime not to have read all the books there are."
"This is a queer kind of place, isn't it?"
"Yes, it's a funny idea to call it the Haunted Bookshop.
I wonder what it means."
"Mr. Mifflin told me it meant haunted by the ghosts of great literature.
I hope they won't annoy you. The ghost of Thomas Carlyle seems
to be pretty active."
"I'm not afraid of ghosts," said Titania.
Aubrey gazed at the fire. He wanted to say that he intended
from now on to do a little haunting on his own account but he did
not know just how to break it gently. And then Roger returned
from the cellar with the bottle of sherry. As he was uncorking it,
they heard the shop door close, and Mrs. Mifflin came in.
"Well, Roger," she said; "if you think so much of your old Cromwell,
you'd better keep it in here. Here it is." She laid the book on
the table.
"For the love of Mike!" exclaimed Roger. "Who brought it back?"
"I guess it was your friend the assistant chef," said Mrs. Mifflin.
"Anyway, he had a beard like a Christmas tree. He was mighty polite.
He said he was terribly absent minded, and that the other day he was
in here looking at some books and just walked off with it without knowing
what he was doing. He offered to pay for the trouble he had caused,
but of course I wouldn't let him. I asked if he wanted to see you,
but he said he was in a hurry."
"I'm almost disappointed," said Roger. "I thought that I had turned
up a real booklover. Here we are, all hands drink the health
of Mr. Thomas Carlyle."
The toast was drunk, and they settled themselves in their chairs.
"And here's to the new employee," said Helen. This also was dispatched,
Aubrey draining his glass with a zeal which did not escape Miss
Chapman's discerning eye. Roger then put out his hand for the Dickens.
But first he picked up his beloved Cromwell. He looked at it carefully,
and then held the volume close to the light.
"The mystery's not over yet," he said. "It's been rebound.
This isn't the original binding."
"Are you sure?" said Helen in surprise. "It looks the same."
"The binding has been cleverly imitated, but it can't fool me.
In the first place, there was a rubbed corner at the top;
and there was an ink stain on one of the end papers."
"There's still a stain there," said Aubrey, looking over his shoulder.
"Yes, but not the same stain. I've had that book long enough
to know it by heart. Now what the deuce would that lunatic want
to have it rebound for?"
"Goodness gracious," said Helen, "put it away and forget about it.
We'll all be dreaming about Carlyle if you're not careful."
Chapter V
Aubrey Walks Part Way Home--and Rides The Rest of the Way
It was a cold, clear night as Mr. Aubrey Gilbert left the Haunted
Bookshop that evening, and set out to walk homeward. Without making
a very conscious choice, he felt instinctively that it would be
agreeable to walk back to Manhattan rather than permit the roaring
disillusion of the subway to break in upon his meditations.
It is to be feared that Aubrey would have badly flunked any
quizzing on the chapters of Somebody's Luggage which the bookseller
had read aloud. His mind was swimming rapidly in the agreeable,
unfettered fashion of a stream rippling downhill. As O. Henry puts
it in one of his most delightful stories: "He was outwardly decent
and managed to preserve his aquarium, but inside he was impromptu
and full of unexpectedness." To say that he was thinking of Miss
Chapman would imply too much power of ratiocination and abstract
scrutiny on his part. He was not thinking: he was being thought.
Down the accustomed channels of his intellect he felt his mind ebbing
with the irresistible movement of tides drawn by the blandishing moon.
And across these shimmering estuaries of impulse his will, a lost
and naked athlete, was painfully attempting to swim, but making
much leeway and already almost resigned to being carried out
to sea.
He stopped a moment at Weintraub's drug store, on the corner
of Gissing Street and Wordsworth Avenue, to buy some cigarettes,
unfailing solace of an agitated bosom.
It was the usual old-fashioned pharmacy of those parts of Brooklyn:
tall red, green, and blue vases of liquid in the windows threw
blotches of coloured light onto the pavement; on the panes was
affixed white china lettering: H. WE TRAUB, DEUT CHE APOTHEKER.
Inside, the customary shelves of labelled jars, glass cases
holding cigars, nostrums and toilet knick-knacks, and in one corner
an ancient revolving bookcase deposited long ago by the Tabard
Inn Library. The shop was empty, but as he opened the door
a bell buzzed sharply. In a back chamber he could hear voices.
As he waited idly for the druggist to appear, Aubrey cast
a tolerant eye over the dusty volumes in the twirling case.
There were the usual copies of Harold MacGrath's The Man on the Box,
A Girl of the Limberlost, and The Houseboat on the Styx.
The Divine Fire, much grimed, leaned against Joe Chapple's Heart Throbs.
Those familiar with the Tabard Inn bookcases still to be found
in outlying drug-shops know that the stock has not been "turned"
for many a year. Aubrey was the more surprised, on spinning
the the case round, to find wedged in between two other volumes
the empty cover of a book that had been torn loose from the pages
to which it belonged. He glanced at the lettering on the back.
It ran thus:
CARLYLE
----
OLIVER CROMWELL'S
LETTERS
AND
SPEECHES
Obeying a sudden impulse, he slipped the book cover in his
overcoat pocket.
Mr. Weintraub entered the shop, a solid Teutonic person with discoloured
pouches under his eyes and a face that was a potent argument
for prohibition. His manner, however, was that of one anxious
to please. Aubrey indicated the brand of cigarettes he wanted.
Having himself coined the advertising catchword for them--They're mild--
but they satisfy--he felt a certain loyal compulsion always to smoke
this kind. The druggist held out the packet, and Aubrey noticed
that his fingers were stained a deep saffron colour.
"I see you're a cigarette smoker, too," said Aubrey pleasantly,
as he opened the packet and lit one of the paper tubes at a little
alcohol flame burning in a globe of blue glass on the counter.
"Me? I never smoke," said Mr. Weintraub, with a smile which somehow
did not seem to fit his surly face. "I must have steady nerves
in my profession. Apothecaries who smoke make up bad prescriptions."
"Well, how do you get your hands stained that way?"
Mr. Weintraub removed his hands from the counter.
"Chemicals," he grunted. "Prescriptions--all that sort of thing."
"Well," said Aubrey, "smoking's a bad habit. I guess I do too much
of it." He could not resist the impression that someone was listening
to their talk. The doorway at the back of the shop was veiled
by a portiere of beads and thin bamboo sections threaded on strings.
He heard them clicking as though they had been momentarily
pulled aside. Turning, just as he opened the door to leave,
he noticed the bamboo curtain swaying.
"Well, good-night," he said, and stepped out onto the street.
As he walked down Wordsworth Avenue, under the thunder of the L,
past lighted lunchrooms, oyster saloons, and pawnshops, Miss Chapman
resumed her sway. With the delightful velocity of thought his mind
whirled in a narrowing spiral round the experience of the evening.
The small book-crammed sitting room of the Mifflins, the sparkling fire,
the lively chirrup of the bookseller reading aloud--and there,
in the old easy chair whose horsehair stuffing was bulging out,
that blue-eyed vision of careless girlhood! Happily he had been
so seated that he could study her without seeming to do so.
The line of her ankle where the firelight danced upon it put Coles
Phillips to shame, he averred. Extraordinary, how these creatures
are made to torment us with their intolerable comeliness! Against the
background of dusky bindings her head shone with a soft haze of gold.
Her face, that had an air of naive and provoking independence,
made him angry with its unnecessary surplus of enchantment.
An unaccountable gust of rage drove him rapidly along the frozen street.
"Damn it," he cried, "what right has any girl to be as pretty as that?
Why--why, I'd like to beat her!" he muttered, amazed at himself.
"What the devil right has a girl got to look so innocently adorable?"
It would be unseemly to follow poor Aubrey in his vacillations
of rage and worship as he thrashed along Wordsworth Avenue,
hearing and seeing no more than was necessary for the preservation
of his life at street crossings. Half-smoked cigarette stubs glowed
in his wake;[2] his burly bosom echoed with incoherent oratory.
In the darker stretches of Fulton Street that lead up to the Brooklyn
Bridge he fiercely exclaimed: "By God, it's not such a bad world."
As he ascended the slope of that vast airy span, a black midget
against a froth of stars, he was gravely planning such vehemence
of exploit in the advertising profession as would make it seem less
absurd to approach the President of the Daintybits Corporation
with a question for which no progenitor of loveliness is ever
quite prepared.
[2] NOTE WHILE PROOFREADING: Surely this phrase was unconsciously
lifted from R. L. S. But where does the original occur?
C. D. M.
In the exact centre of the bridge something diluted his mood;
he halted, leaning against the railing, to consider the splendour
of the scene. The hour was late--moving on toward midnight--
but in the tall black precipices of Manhattan scattered lights gleamed,
in an odd, irregular pattern like the sparse punctures on the
raffle-board--"take a chance on a Milk-Fed Turkey"--the East Indian
elevator-boy presents to apartment-house tenants about Hallowe'en.
A fume of golden light eddied over uptown merriment: he could see
the ruby beacon on the Metropolitan Tower signal three quarters.
Underneath the airy decking of the bridge a tug went puffing by,
her port and starboard lamps trailing red and green threads over
the tideway. Some great argosy of the Staten Island fleet swept
serenely down to St. George, past Liberty in her soft robe of light,
carrying theatred commuters, dazed with weariness and blinking
at the raw fury of the electric bulbs. Overhead the night was
a superb arch of clear frost, sifted with stars. Blue sparks
crackled stickily along the trolley wires as the cars groaned over
the bridge.
Aubrey surveyed all this splendid scene without exact observation.
He was of a philosophic turn, and was attempting to console his
discomfiture in the overwhelming lustre of Miss Titania by the thought
that she was, after all, the creature and offspring of the science
he worshipped--that of Advertising. Was not the fragrance of her presence,
the soft compulsion of her gaze, even the delirious frill of muslin
at her wrist, to be set down to the credit of his chosen art?
Had he not, pondering obscurely upon "attention-compelling" copy
and lay-out and type-face, in a corner of the Grey-Matter office,
contributed to the triumphant prosperity and grace of this
unconscious beneficiary? Indeed she seemed to him, fiercely tormenting
himself with her loveliness, a symbol of the mysterious and subtle
power of publicity. It was Advertising that had done this--
that had enabled Mr. Chapman, a shy and droll little person,
to surround this girl with all the fructifying glories of civilization--
to foster and cherish her until she shone upon the earth like a
morning star! Advertising had clothed her, Advertising had fed her,
schooled, roofed, and sheltered her. In a sense she was the crowning
advertisement of her father's career, and her innocent perfection
taunted him just as much as the bright sky-sign he knew was flashing
the words CHAPMAN PRUNES above the teeming pavements of Times Square.
He groaned to think that he himself, by his conscientious labours,
had helped to put this girl in such a position that he could hardly dare
approach her.
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