The Daughter of the Storage

Dropped to the glimpses of the distant sea,
Content as if we brought, returning thus,
The secret of the Black Cross back with us.

XII

THE CRITICAL BOOKSTORE

It had long been the notion of Frederick Erlcort, who held it playfully, held it seriously, according to the company he was in, that there might be a censorship of taste and conscience in literary matters strictly affiliated with the retail commerce in books. When he first began to propose it, playfully, seriously, as his listener chose, he said that he had noticed how in the great department stores where nearly everything to supply human need was sold, the shopmen and shopwomen seemed instructed by the ownership or the management to deal in absolute good faith with the customers, and not to misrepresent the quality, the make, or the material of any article in the slightest degree. A thing was not to be called silk or wool when it was partly cotton; it was not to be said that it would wash when it would not wash, or that the color would not come off when it would come off, or that the stuff was English or French when it was American.

When Erlcort once noted his interest in the fact to a floor-walker whom he happened to find at leisure, the floor-walker said, Yes, that was so; and the house did it because it was business, good business, the only good business. He was instantly enthusiastic, and he said that just in the same way, as an extension of its good faith with the public, the house had established the rule of taking back any article which a customer did not like, or did not find what she had supposed when she got it home, and refunding the money. This was the best sort of business; it held custom; the woman became a customer for life. The floor-walker laughed, and after he had told an anxious applicant, "Second aisle to the left, lady; three counters back," he concluded to Erlcort, "I say she because a man never brings a thing back when he's made a mistake; but a woman can always blame it on the house. That so?"

Erlcort laughed with him, and in going out he stopped at the book-counter. Rather it was a bookstore, and no small one, with ranks of new books covering the large tables and mounting to their level from the floor, neatly piled, and with shelves of complete editions and soberer-looking volumes stretching along the wall as high as the ceiling. "Do you happen to have a good book – a book that would read good, I mean – in your stock here?" he asked the neat blonde behind the literary barricade.

"Well, here's a book that a good many are reading," she answered, with prompt interest and a smile that told in the book's favor; it was a protectingly filial and guardedly ladylike smile.

"Yes, but is it a book worth reading – worth the money?"

"Well, I don't know as I'm a judge," the kind little blonde replied. She added, daringly, "All I can say is, I set up till two last night to finish it."

"And you advise me to buy it?"

"Well, we're not allowed to do that, exactly. I can only tell you what I know."

"But if I take it, and it isn't what I expected, I can return it and get my money back?"

"That's something I never was asked before. Mr. Jeffers! Mr. Jeffers!" she called to a floor-walker passing near; and when he stopped and came up to the counter, she put the case to him.

He took the book from Erlcort's hand and examined the outside of it curiously if not critically. Then he looked from it to Erlcort, and said, "Oh, how do you do again! Well, no, sir; I don't know as we could do that. You see, you would have to read it to find out that you didn't want it, and that would be like using or wearing an article, wouldn't it? We couldn't take back a thing that had been used or worn – heigh?"

"But you might have some means of knowing whether a book is good or not?"

"Well, yes, we might. That's a point we have never had raised before. Miss Prittiman, haven't we any means of knowing whether a book's something we can guarantee or not?"

"Well, Mr. Jeffers, there's the publisher's advertisement."

"Why, yes, so there is! And a respectable publisher wouldn't indorse a book that wasn't the genuine article, would he now, sir?"

"He mightn't," Erlcort said, as if he felt the force of the argument.

"And there are the notices in the newspapers. They ought to tell," Miss Prittiman added, more convincingly. "I don't know," she said, as from a sensitive conscience, "whether there have been any about this book yet, but I should think there would be."

"And in the mean time, as you won't guarantee the book so that I can bring it back and get my money if I find it worthless, I must accept the publisher's word?" Erlcort pressed further.

"I should think you could do that," the floor-walker suggested, with the appearance of being tired.

"Well, I think I will, for once," Erlcort relented. "But wait! What does the publisher say?"

"It's all printed on this slip inside," the blonde said, and she showed it as she took the book from him. "Shall I send it? Or will you – "

"No, no, thank you, I'll take it with me. Let me – "

He kept the printed slip and began to read it. The blonde wrapped the book up and laid it with a half-dollar in change on the counter before Erlcort. The floor-walker went away; Erlcort heard him saying, "No, madam; toys on the fifth floor, at the extreme rear, left," while he lost himself in the glowing promises of the publisher. It appeared that the book he had just bought was by a perfectly new author, an old lady of seventy who had never written a novel before, and might therefore be trusted for an entire freshness of thought and feeling. The plot was of a gripping intensity; the characters were painted with large, bold strokes, and were of an unexampled virility; the story was packed with passion from cover to cover; and the reader would be held breathless by the author's skill in working from the tragic conditions to an all-round happy conclusion.

From time to time Erlcort heard the gentle blonde saying such things as, "Oh yes; it's the best-seller, all right," and, "All I can say is I set up till two o'clock in the morning to finish it," and, "Yes, ma'am; it's by a new writer; a very old lady of seventy who is just beginning to write; well, that's what I heard."

On his way up-town in the Subway he clung to the wonted strap, unsupported by anything in the romance which he had bought; and yet he could not take the book back and get his money, or even exchange it for some article of neckwear or footwear. In his extremity he thought he would try giving it to the trainman just before he reached his stop.

"You want to give it to me? Well, that's something that never happened to me on this line before. I guess my wife will like it. I —1009th Street! Change for East Brooklyn and the Bronx!" the guard shouted, and he let Erlcort out of the car, the very first of the tide that spilled itself forth at the station. He called after him, "Do as much for you some time."

The incident first amused Erlcort, and then it began to trouble him; but he appeased his remorse by toying with his old notion of a critical bookstore. His mind was still at play with it when he stopped at the bell-pull of an elderly girl of his acquaintance who had a studio ten stories above, and the habit of giving him afternoon tea in it if he called there about five o'clock. She had her ugly painting-apron still on, and her thumb through the hole in her palette, when she opened her door to him.

"Too soon?" he asked.

She answered as well as she could with the brush held horizontally in her mouth while she glared inhospitably at him. "Well, not much," and then she let him in, and went and lighted her spirit-lamp.

He began at once to tell her of his strange experience, and went on till she said: "Well, there's your tea. I don't know what you've been driving at, but I suppose you do. Is it the old thing?"

"It's my critical bookstore, if that's what you call the old thing."

"Oh! That! I thought it had failed 'way back in the dark ages."

"The dark ages are not back, please; they're all 'round, and you know very well that my critical bookstore has never been tried yet. But tell me one thing: should you wish to live with a picture, even for a few hours, which had been painted by an old lady of seventy who had never tried to paint before?"

"If I intended to go crazy, yes. What has all that got to do with it?"

"That's the joint commendation of the publisher and the kind little blonde who united to sell me the book I just gave to that poor Subway trainman. Do you ever buy a new book?"

"No; I always borrow an old one."

"But if you had to buy a new one, wouldn't you like to know of a place where you could be sure of getting a good one?"

"I shouldn't mind. Or, yes, I should, rather. Where's it to be?"

"Oh, I know. I've had my eye on the place for a good while. It's a funny old place in Sixth Avenue – "

"Sixth Avenue!"

"Don't interrupt – where the dearest old codger in the world is just going out of the house-furnishing business in a small way. It's kept getting smaller and smaller – I've watched it shrink – till now it can't stand up against the big shops, and the old codger told me the other day that it was no use."

"Poor fellow!"

"No. He's not badly off, and he's going back up-state where he came from about forty years ago, and he can live – or die – very well on what he's put by. I've known him rather a good while, and we've been friends ever since we've been acquainted."

"Go on," the elderly girl said.

Erlcort was not stopping, but she spoke so as to close her mouth, which she was apt to let hang open in a way that she did not like; she had her intimates pledged to tell her when she was doing it, but she could not make a man promise, and she had to look after her mouth herself with Erlcort. It was not a bad mouth; her eyes were large, and it was merely large to match them.

"When shall you begin – open shop?" she asked.