His shop today is the center for the Chicago collectors. The human interest he takes in his customers is that of a real antiquarian. Everybody is at home in his shop. He doesn’t begrudge anyone finding a gem on his “quarter counter.” Last week, for instance, some lucky chap found a first edition of Rousseau’s “Emile” with Rousseau’s autograph presentation inscription to the King and the royal coat of arms on the binding, and bought the book for seventy-five cents. “Such things may happen,” was Mr. Powner’s remark when he heard of the transaction. “I am glad he got it.” Saturday is the great book day. In the back room upon empty book boxes men of all walks of life sit around, prosperous business men, millionaires, who are just enjoying living, students, newspaper men from the nearby newspaper offices, but they all are linked by a common love. They are all ardent book collectors. There are a good many other book shops in Chicago. There is Hill’s, who caters to the extravagant wishes of Western millionaires. Then there is McClurge’s, the Model Book Store, conducted like a modern department store. But then there is the unique product of the Chicago book market, the peripatetic book-seller. Half collector, half merchant, these men are constantly nosing about shops, picking up books in Powner’s, for instance, for twenty-five cents and selling them at once for two dollars and a half to Mr. Hill, who they know has an inquiry for that particular copy. They love the uncertainty of their daily bread. Setting out in the morning upon their rounds, they look forward to their finds of the day. In a junk shop they, perhaps, will run across one of those scarce items which are found once in a lifetime, and again they may find nothing but worry about the needs of the day. 1916 Chicago Revisited In Memoriam Julius Doerner Julius Doerner is dead. He had been a book dealer after his own heart. Living among his books was his delight. He bought constantly, sold little and read much: a man who valued his books by their contents. He was as simple as a girl of sixteen, a bad girl of sixteen. He wore an alpaca coat and panama hat winter and summer, in snow and shine. Both were bought ten years ago at a Salvation Army store. Cats were Julius Doerner’s only companions; stray cats picked up on dark nights in alleys and doorways. They were named after the days of the week on which he found them. He never had more than fourteen. “Friday Afternoon” was a black tom-cat with six toes on each paw. It could talk. Doerner said so and he was very truthful. He hated women who were unwomanly, thought policemen incompetent, and lived on seven cents a day. He loved his mother, who sent him a fried chicken every Christmas, half a turkey on each Thanksgiving day, and who brought him into this world fifty-seven years ago.