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| The Haunted Bookshop | Christopher Morley |
The Corn Cob Club |
Page 10 of 10 |
Mifflin came in, looking rather annoyed. "Here's an odd thing," he said. "I know damn well that copy of Cromwell was on the shelf because I saw it there last night. It's not there now." "That's nothing," said Quincy. "You know how people come into a second-hand store, see a book they take a fancy to but don't feel like buying just then, and tuck it away out of sight or on some other shelf where they think no one else will spot it, but they'll be able to find it when they can afford it. Probably someone's done that with your Cromwell." "Maybe, but I doubt it," said Mifflin. "Mrs. Mifflin says she didn't sell it this evening. I woke her up to ask her. She was dozing over her knitting at the desk. I guess she's tired after her trip." "I'm sorry to miss the Carlyle quotation," said Benson. "What was the gist?" "I think I've got it jotted down in a notebook," said Roger, hunting along a shelf. "Yes, here it is." He read aloud: "The works of a man, bury them under what guano-mountains and obscene owl-droppings you will, do not perish, cannot perish. What of Heroism, what of Eternal Light was in a Man and his Life, is with very great exactness added to the Eternities, remains forever a new divine portion of the Sum of Things. "Now, my friends, the bookseller is one of the keys in that universal adding machine, because he aids in the cross-fertilization of men and books. His delight in his calling doesn't need to be stimulated even by the bright shanks of a Coles Phillips picture. |
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