Booksellers and bookselling -- Fiction; Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction; Mystery and detective stories
Rarely was a more genuine tribute paid to entrancing girlhood than when
Aubrey compelled himself, by sheer force of will and the ticking of his
subconscious time-sense, to wake at six o'clock the next morning. For
this young man took sleep seriously and with a primitive zest. It was
to him almost a religious function. As a minor poet has said, he "made
sleep a career."
But he did not know what train Roger might be taking, and he was
determined not to miss him. By a quarter after six he was seated in
the Milwaukee Lunch (which is never closed--Open from Now Till the
Judgment Day. Tables for Ladies, as its sign says) with a cup of
coffee and corned beef hash. In the mood of tender melancholy common
to unaccustomed early rising he dwelt fondly on the thought of Titania,
so near and yet so far away. He had leisure to give free rein to these
musings, for it was ten past seven before Roger appeared, hurrying
toward the subway. Aubrey followed at a discreet distance, taking care
not to be observed.
The bookseller and his pursuer both boarded the eight o'clock train at
the Pennsylvania Station, but in very different moods. To Roger, this
expedition was a frolic, pure and simple. He had been tied down to the
bookshop so long that a day's excursion seemed too good to be true. He
bought two cigars--an unusual luxury--and let the morning paper lie
unheeded in his lap as the train drummed over the Hackensack marshes.
He felt a good deal of pride in having been summoned to appraise the
Oldham library. Mr. Oldham was a very distinguished collector, a
wealthy Philadelphia merchant whose choice Johnson, Lamb, Keats, and
Blake items were the envy of connoisseurs all over the world. Roger
knew very well that there were many better-known dealers who would have
jumped at the chance to examine the collection and pocket the
appraiser's fee. The word that Roger had had by long distance
telephone was that Mr. Oldham had decided to sell his collection, and
before putting it to auction desired the advices of an expert as to the
prices his items should command in the present state of the market.
And as Roger was not particularly conversant with current events in the
world of rare books and manuscripts, he spent most of the trip in
turning over some annotated catalogues of recent sales which Mr.
Chapman had lent him. "This invitation," he said to himself, "confirms
what I have always said, that the artist, in any line of work, will
eventually be recognized above the mere tradesman. Somehow or other
Mr. Oldham has heard that I am not only a seller of old books but a
lover of them. He prefers to have me go over his treasures with him,
rather than one of those who peddle these things like so much tallow."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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