The Haunted Bookshop · Chapter 3 (2/2)

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 secondhand 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 bookshelves 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 cashbox 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. Tomorrow 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:

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 anyone 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.

“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!”