36. CHAPTER XXXVI.
IN due time Laura alighted at the book store, and began to
look at the titles of the handsome array of books on the
counter. A dapper clerk of perhaps nineteen or twenty
years, with hair accurately parted and surprisingly slick,
came bustling up and leaned over with a pretty smile and an
affable—
“Can I—was there any particular book you wished to see?”
“Have you Taine's England?”
“Beg pardon?”
“Taine's Notes on England.”
The young gentleman scratched the side of his nose with
a cedar pencil which he took down from its bracket on the
side of his head, and reflected a moment:
“Ah—I see,” [with a bright smile]—“Train, you mean—
not Taine. George Francis Train. No, ma'm we—”
“I mean Taine—if I may take the liberty.”
The clerk reflected again—then:
“Taine....Taine....Is it hymns?”
“No, it isn't hymns. It is a volume that is making a deal
of talk just now, and is very widely known—except among
parties who sell it.”
The clerk glanced at her face to see if a sarcasm might
not lurk somewhere in that obscure speech, but the gentle
simplicity of the beautiful eyes that met his, banished that
suspicion. He went away and conferred with the proprietor.
Both appeared to be nonplussed. They thought and talked,
and talked and thought by turns. Then both came forward
and the proprietor said:
“Is it an American book, ma'm?”
“No, it is an American reprint of an English translation”
“Oh! Yes—yes—I remember, now. We are expecting it
every day. It isn't out yet.”
“I think you must be mistaken, because you advertised it
a week ago.”
“Why no—can that be so?”
“Yes, I am sure of it. And besides, here is the book
itself, on the counter.”
She bought it and the proprietor retired from the field.
Then she asked the clerk for the Autocrat of the Breakfast
Table—and was pained to see the admiration her beauty had
inspired in him fade out of his face. He said with cold
dignity, that cook books were somewhat out of their line, but
he would order it if she desired it. She said, no, never mind.
Then she fell to conning the titles again, finding a delight in
the inspection of the Hawthornes, the Longfellows, the
Tennysons, and other favorites of her idle hours. Meantime
the clerk's eyes were busy, and no doubt his admiration was
returning again—or may be he was only gauging her probable
literary tastes by some sagacious system of admeasurement
only known to his guild. Now he began to “assist”
her in making a selection; but his efforts met with no success
—indeed they only annoyed her and unpleasantly interrupted
her meditations. Presently, while she was holding a copy
of “Venetian Life” in her hand and running over a familiar
passage here and there, the clerk said, briskly, snatching up
a paper-covered volume and striking the counter a smart
blow with it to dislodge the dust:
“Now here is a work that we've sold a lot of. Everybody
that's read it likes it”—and he intruded it under her nose;
“it's a book that I can recommend—`The Pirate's Doom, or
the Last of the Buccaneers.' I think it's one of the best
things that's come out this season.”
Laura pushed it gently aside with her hand and went on
filching from “Venetian Life.”
“I believe I do not want it,” she said.
The clerk hunted around awhile, glancing at one title and
then another, but apparently not finding what he wanted.
However, he succeeded at last. Said he:
“Have you ever read this, ma'm? I am sure you'll like it.
It's by the author of `The Hooligans of Hackensack.' It is
full of love troubles and mysteries and all sorts of such things.
The heroine strangles her own mother. Just glance at the
title please,—`Gonderil the Vampire, or The Dance of Death.'
And here is `The Jokist's Own Treasury, or, The Phunny
Phellow's Bosom Phriend.' The funniest thing!—I've read
it four times, ma'm, and I can laugh at the very sight of it
yet. And `Gonderil,'—I assure you it is the most splendid
book I ever read. I know you will like these books, ma'm,
because I've read them myself and I know what they are.”
“Oh, I was perplexed—but I see how it is, now. You
must have thought I asked you to tell me what sort of books
I wanted—for I am apt to say things which I don't really
mean, when I am absent minded. I suppose I did ask you,
didn't I?”
“No ma'm,—but I—”
“Yes, I must have done it, else you would not have
offered your services, for fear it might be rude. But don't
be troubled—it was all my fault. I ought not to have been
so heedless—I ought not to have asked you.”
“But you didn't ask me, ma'm. We always help customers
all we can. You see our experience—living right among
books all the time—that sort of thing makes us able to help
a customer make a selection, you know.”
“Now does it, indeed? It is part of your business, then?”
“Yes'm, we always help.”
“How good it is of you. Some people would think it
rather obtrusive, perhaps, but I don't—I think it is real kindness—even
charity. Some people jump to conclusions without
any thought—you have noticed that?”
“O yes,” said the clerk, a little perplexed as to whether to
feel comfortable or the reverse; “oh yes, indeed, I've often
noticed that, ma'm.”
“Yes, they jump to conclusions with an absurd heedlessness.
Now some people would think it odd that because
you, with the budding tastes and the innocent enthusiasms
natural to your time of life, enjoyed the Vampires and the
volume of nursery jokes, you should imagine that an older
person would delight in them too—but I do not think it odd
at all. I think it natural—perfectly natural—in you. And
kind, too. You look like a person who not only finds a deep
pleasure in any little thing in the way of literature that strikes
you forcibly, but is willing and glad to share that pleasure
with others—and that, I think, is noble and admirable—very
noble and admirable. I think we ought all to share our
pleasures with others, and do what we can to make each other
happy, do not you?”
“Oh, yes. Oh, yes, indeed. Yes, you are quite right,
ma'm.”
But he was getting unmistakably uncomfortable, now, notwithstanding
Laura's confiding sociability and almost affectionate
tone.
“Yes, indeed. Many people would think that what a
bookseller—or perhaps his clerk—knows about literature as
literature, in contradistinction to its character as merchandise,
would hardly be of much assistance to a person—that is, to
an adult, of course—in the selection of food for the mind—
except of course wrapping paper, or twine, or wafers, or
something like that—but I never feel that way. I feel that
whatever service you offer me, you offer with a good heart,
and I am as grateful for it as if it were the greatest
boon to me. And it is useful to me—it is bound to be so.—
It cannot be otherwise. If you show me a book which you
have read—not skimmed over or merely glanced at, but read
[ILLUSTRATION]
VERY AGREEABLE.
[Description: 499EAF. Page 333. In-line image of a man inspecting a watch on the dress
of the woman next to him.]
—and you tell me that
you enjoyed it and that
you could
read it three or four times, then I know what book I want—”
“Thank you!—th—”
—“to avoid. Yes indeed. I think that no information
ever comes amiss in this world. Once or twice I have traveled
in the cars—and there you know, the peanut boy always
measures you with his eye, and hands you out a book of murders
if you are fond of theology; or Tupper or a dictionary
or T. S. Arthur if you are fond of poetry; or he hands you
a volume of distressing jokes or a copy of the American Miscellany
if you particularly dislike that sort of literary fatty
degeneration of the heart—just for the world like a pleasant-spoken
well-meaning gentleman in any bookstore—. But
here I am running on as if business men had nothing to do
but listen to women talk. You must pardon me, for I was
not thinking.—And you must let me thank you again for
helping me. I read a good deal, and shall be in nearly every
day; and I would be sorry to have you think me a customer
who talks too much and buys too little. Might I ask you
to give me the time? Ah—two—twenty-two. Thank you
very much. I will set mine while I have the opportunity.”
But she could not get her watch open, apparently. She
tried, and tried again. Then the clerk, trembling at his own
audacity, begged to be allowed to assist. She allowed him.
He succeeded, and was radiant under the sweet influences of
her pleased face and her seductively worded acknowledgements
with gratification. Then he gave her the exact time
again, and anxiously watched her turn the hands slowly till
they reached the precise spot without accident or loss of life,
and then he looked as happy as a man who had helped a fellow
being through a momentous undertaking, and was grateful
to know that he had not lived in vain. Laura thanked
him once more. The words were music to his ear; but what
were they compared to the revishing smile with which she
flooded his whole system? When she bowed her adieu and
turned away, he was no longer suffering torture in the pillory
where she had had him trussed up during so many distressing
moments, but he belonged to the list of her conquests
and was a flattered and happy thrall, with the dawn-light of
love breaking over the eastern elevations of his heart.
It was about the hour, now, for the chairman of the House
Committee on Benevolent Appropriations to make his appearance,
and Laura stepped to the door to reconnoitre. She
glanced up the street, and sure enough—
