Roger had just put Carlyle's Cromwell back in its proper
place
in the History alcove when Helen and Titania returned
from
the movies. Bock, who had been dozing under his master's
chair,
rose politely and wagged a deferential tail.
"I do think Bock has the darlingest manners," said Titania.
"Yes," said Helen, "it's really a marvel that his wagging
muscles
aren't all worn out, he has abused them so."
"Well," said Roger, "did you have a good time?"
"An adorable time!" cried Titania, with a face and voice
so sparkling
that two musty habitues of the shop popped their heads
out of
the alcoves marked ESSAYS and THEOLOGY and peered in
amazement.
One of these even went so far as to purchase the copy
of Leigh Hunt's
Wishing Cap Papers he had been munching through, in order
to have
an excuse to approach the group and satisfy his bewildered
eyes.
When Miss Chapman took the book and wrapped it up for
him,
his astonishment was made complete.
Unconscious that she was actually creating business, Titania
resumed.
"We met your friend Mr. Gilbert on the street," she said,
"and he went to the movies with us. He says he's coming
in on Monday to fix the furnace while you're away."
"Well," said Roger, "these advertising agencies are certainly
enterprising,
aren't they? Think of sending a man over to attend to
my furnace,
just on the slim chance of getting my advertising account."
"Did you have a quiet evening?" said Helen.
"I spent most of the time writing to Andrew," said Roger.
"One amusing thing happened, though. I actually sold
that copy
of Philip Dru."
"No!" cried Helen.
"A fact," said Roger. "A man was looking at it, and I
told him it was
supposed to be written by Colonel House. He insisted
on buying it.
But what a sell when he tries to read it!"
"Did Colonel House really write it?" asked Titania.
"I don't know," said Roger. "I hope not, because I find
in myself
a secret tendency to believe that Mr. House is an able
man.
If he did write it, I devoutly hope none of the foreign
statesmen in
Paris will learn of that fact."
While Helen and Titania took off their wraps, Roger was
busy closing
up the shop. He went down to the corner with Bock to
mail his letter,
and when he returned to the den Helen had prepared a
large jug of cocoa.
They sat down by the fire to enjoy it.
"Chesterton has written a very savage poem against cocoa,"
said Roger, "which you will find in The Flying Inn; but
for my part
I find it the ideal evening drink. It lets the mind down
gently,
and paves the way for slumber. I have often noticed that
the most
terrific philosophical agonies can be allayed by three
cups
of Mrs. Mifflin's cocoa. A man can safely read Schopenhauer
all
evening if he has a tablespoonful of cocoa and a tin
of condensed
milk available. Of course it should be made with condensed
milk,
which is the only way."
"I had no idea anything could be so good," said Titania.
"Of course, Daddy makes condensed milk in one of his
factories, but I
never dreamed of trying it. I thought it was only used
by explorers,
people at the North Pole, you know."
"How stupid of me!" exclaimed Roger. "I quite forgot to
tell you!
Your father called up just after you had gone out this
evening,
and wanted to know how you were getting on."
"Oh, dear," said Titania. "He must have been delighted
to hear
I was at the movies, on the second day of my first job!
He probably said it was just like me."
"I explained that I had insisted on your going with Mrs.
Mifflin,
because I felt she needed the change."
"I do hope," said Titania, "you won't let Daddy poison
your mind about me. He thinks I'm dreadfully frivolous, just because I
LOOK frivolous.
But I'm so keen to make good in this job. I've been practicing
doing up parcels all afternoon, so as to learn how to
tie
the string nicely and not cut it until after the knot's
tied.
I found that when you cut it beforehand either you get
it too short
and it won't go round, or else too long and you waste
some.
Also I've learned how to make wrapping paper cuffs to
keep my
sleeves clean."
"Well, I haven't finished yet," continued Roger. "Your
father wants
us all to spend to-morrow out at your home. He wants
to show us
some books he has just bought, and besides he thinks
maybe you're
feeling homesick."
"What, with all these lovely books to read? Nonsense!
I don't
want to go home for six months!"
"He wouldn't take No for an answer. He's going to send
Edwards
round with the car the first thing tomorrow morning."
"What fun!" said Helen. "It'll be delightful."
"Goodness," said Titania. "Imagine leaving this adorable
bookshop
to spend Sunday in Larchmont.
Well, I'll be able to get that georgette blouse I forgot."
"What time will the car be here?" asked Helen.
"Mr. Chapman said about nine o'clock. He begs us to get
out there
as early as possible, as he wants to spend the day showing
us
his books."
As they sat round the fading bed of coals, Roger began
hunting
along his private shelves. "Have you ever read any Gissing?"
he said.
Titania made a pathetic gesture to Mrs. Mifflin. "It's
awfully
embarrassing to be asked these things! No, I never heard
of him."
"Well, as the street we live on is named after him, I
think you
ought to," he said. He pulled down his copy of The House
of Cobwebs.
"I'm going to read you one of the most delightful short
stories I know.
It's called `A Charming Family.'"
"No, Roger," said Mrs. Mifflin firmly. "Not to-night.
It's eleven
o'clock, and I can see Titania's tired. Even Bock has
left us
and gone in to his kennel. He's got more sense than you
have."
"All right," said the bookseller amiably. "Miss Chapman,
you take the book up with you and read it in bed if you
want to.
Are you a librocubicularist?"
Titania looked a little scandalized.
"It's all right, my dear," said Helen. "He only means
are you fond
of reading in bed. I've been waiting to hear him work
that word
into the conversation. He made it up, and he's immensely
proud
of it."
"Reading in bed?" said Titania. "What a quaint idea!
Does any one do it? It never occurred to me. I'm sure
when I
go to bed I'm far too sleepy to think of such a thing."
"Run along then, both of you," said Roger. "Get your beauty
sleep.
I shan't be very late."
He meant it when he said it, but returning to his desk
at the back
of the shop his eye fell upon his private shelf of books
which he kept
there "to rectify perturbations" as Burton puts it. On
this shelf
there stood Pilgrim's Progress, Shakespeare, The Anatomy
of Melancholy,
The Home Book of Verse, George Herbert's Poems, The Notebooks
of Samuel Butler, and Leaves of Grass.
He took down The Anatomyof Melancholy, that most delightful
of all books for midnight browsing.Turning to one of his favourite passages--"A
Consolatory Digression,Containing the Remedies of All Manner of Discontents"--he
was happily lost to all ticking of the clock, retaining only such bodily
consciousnessas was needful to dump, fill, and relight his pipe from time
to time. Solitude is a dear jewel for men whose days are spent in the tedious
this-and-that of trade. Roger was a glutton for his midnight musings.To
such tried companions as Robert Burton and George Herbert he was wont to
exonerate his spirit. It used to amuse him to think of Burton, the lonely
Oxford scholar, writing that vast book to "rectify" his
own melancholy.
By and by, turning over the musty old pages, he came to
the following,
on Sleep--
The fittest time is two or three hours after supper, whenas
the meat
is now settled at the bottom of the stomach, and 'tis
good to lie
on the right side first, because at that site the liver
doth rest
under the stomach, not molesting any way, but heating
him as a fire
doth a kettle, that is put to it. After the first sleep
'tis not
amiss to lie on the left side, that the meat may the
better descend,
and sometimes again on the belly, but never on the back.
Seven or eight hours is a competent time for a melancholy
man
to rest----
In that case, thought Roger, it's time for me to be turning
in.
He looked at his watch, and found it was half-past twelve.
He switched off his light and went back to the kitchen
quarters to tend
the furnace.
I hesitate to touch upon a topic of domestic bitterness,
but candor compels me to say that Roger's evening vigils
invariably
ended at the ice-box. There are two theories as to this
subject
of ice-box plundering, one of the husband and the other
of the wife.
Husbands are prone to think (in their simplicity) that
if they take
a little of everything palatable they find in the refrigerator,
but thus distributing their forage over the viands the
general effect
of the depradation will be almost unnoticeable. Whereas
wives say
(and Mrs. Mifflin had often explained to Roger) that
it is far better
to take all of any one dish than a little of each; for
the latter
course is likely to diminish each item below the bulk
at which it
is still useful as a left-over. Roger, however, had the
obstinate
viciousness of all good husbands, and he knew the delights
of cold
provender by heart. Many a stewed prune, many a mess
of string beans
or naked cold boiled potato, many a chicken leg, half
apple pie,
or sector of rice pudding, had perished in these midnight
festivals.
He made it a point of honour never to eat quite all of
the dish
in question, but would pass with unabated zest from one
to another.
This habit he had sternly repressed during the war, but
Mrs. Mifflin had
noticed that since the armistice he had resumed it with
hearty violence.
This is a custom which causes the housewife to be confronted
the next
morning with a tragical vista of pathetic scraps. Two
slices of beet
in a little earthenware cup, a sliver of apple pie one
inch wide,
three prunes lowly nestling in a mere trickle of their
own syrup,
and a tablespoonful of stewed rhubarb where had been
one of those
yellow basins nearly full--what can the most resourceful
kitcheneer
do with these oddments? This atrocious practice cannot
be too
bitterly condemned.
But we are what we are, and Roger was even more so. The
Anatomy of
Melancholy always made him hungry, and he dipped discreetly
into various vessels of refreshment, sharing a few scraps with Bock whose
pleading brown eye at these secret suppers always showed a comical realization
of their shameful and furtive nature. Bock knew very well that Roger had
no business at the ice-box, for the larger outlines of social
law upon which every home depends are clearly understood
by dogs.
But Bock's face always showed his tremulous eagerness
to participate
in the sin, and rather than have him stand by as a silent
and
damning critic, Roger used to give him most of the cold
potato.
The censure of a dog is something no man can stand. But
I rove,
as Burton would say.
After the ice-box, the cellar. Like all true householders,
Roger was fond of his cellar. It was something mouldy
of smell,
but it harboured a well-stocked little bin of liquors,
and the florid
glow of the furnace mouth upon the concrete floor was
a great
pleasure to the bookseller. He loved to peer in at the
dancing
flicker of small blue flames that played above the ruddy
mound
of coals in the firebox--tenuous, airy little flames
that were
as blue as violets and hovered up and down in the ascending
gases.
Before blackening the fire with a stoking of coal he pulled
up
a wooden Bushmills box, turned off the electric bulb
overhead,
and sat there for a final pipe, watching the rosy shine
of the grate.
The tobacco smoke, drawn inward by the hot inhaling fire,
seemed dry
and gray in the golden brightness. Bock, who had pattered
down
the steps after him, nosed and snooped about the cellar.
Roger was
thinking of Burton's words on the immortal weed--
Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes
far
beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher's
stones,
a sovereign remedy to all diseases. . . . a virtuous
herb,
if it be well qualified, opportunely taken, and medicinally
used;
but as it is commonly abused by most men, which take
it as tinkers
do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of
goods,
lands, health, hellish, devilish, and damned tobacco,
the ruin
and overthrow of body and soul----
Bock was standing on his hind legs, looking up at the
front wall
of the cellar, in which two small irongrated windows
opened onto
the sunken area by the front door of the shop. He gave
a low growl,
and seemed uneasy.
"What is it, Bock?" said Roger placidly, finishing his
pipe.
Bock gave a short, sharp bark, with a curious note of
protest in it.
But Roger's mind was still with Burton.
"Rats?" he said. "Aye, very likely! This is Ratisbon,
old man,
but don't bark about it. Incident of the French Camp:
`Smiling, the rat fell dead.'"
Bock paid no heed to this persiflage, but prowled the
front
end of the cellar, looking upward in curious agitation.
He growled again, softly.
"Shhh," said Roger gently. "Never mind the rats, Bock.
Come on,
we'll stoke up the fire and go to bed. Lord, it's one
o'clock." |
