"_The Egg-beater! The Egg-beater!_" the blithe young novelist to whom Erlcort told the story repeated. He was still happy in his original success as a best-seller, and he had come to the Critical Bookstore to spy out the stock and see whether his last novel was in it; but though it was not, he joyously extended an acquaintance with Erlcort which had begun elsewhere. "_The Egg-beater?_ What a splendid title for a story of adventure! Keep the secret of its applicability to the last word, or perhaps never reveal it at all, and leave the reader worrying. That's one way; makes him go and talk about the book to all the girls he knows and get them guessing. Best ad. in the world. _The Egg-beater!_ Doesn't it suggest desert islands and penguins' nests in the rocks? Fellow and girl shipwrecked, and girl wants to make an omelette after they've got sick of plain eggs, and can't for want of an egg-beater. Heigh? He invents one--makes it out of some wire that floats off from the wreck. See? When they are rescued, she brings it away, and doesn't let him know it till their Iron Wedding Day. They keep it over his study fireplace always." This author was the first to stretch his legs before Erlcort's fire from his seat on one of the reproductions. He could not say enough of the beauty of the place, and he asked if he might sit there and watch for the old codger's old customers coming to buy hardware. There might be copy in it. But the old customers did not come so often as he hoped and Erlcort feared. Instead there came _bona fide_ book-buyers, who asked some for a book and some for a particular book. The first were not satisfied with the books that Erlcort or his acting saleslady recommended, and went away without buying. The last were indignant at not finding what they wanted in Erlcort's selection. "Why don't you stock it?" they demanded. "Because I don't think it's worth reading." "Oh, indeed!" The sarcastic customers were commonly ladies. "I thought you let the public judge of that!" "There are bookstores where they do. This is a critical bookstore. I sell only the books that _I_ think worth reading. If you had noticed my sign--" "Oh!" the customer would say, and she, too, would go away without buying. There were other ladies who came, links of the endless chain of volunteer readers who had tried to help Erlcort in making his selection, and he could see them slyly looking his stock over for the books they had praised to him. Mostly they went away without comment, but with heads held high in the offense which he felt even more than saw. One, indeed, did ask him why he had not stocked her chosen book, and he had to say, "Well, when I came to go through it carefully, I didn't think it quite--" "But here is _The Green Bay Tree_, and _The Biggest Toad in the Puddle_, and--" "I know. For one reason and another I thought them worth stocking."