You see our experience--living right among books all the time--that sort of thing makes us able to help a customer make a selection, you know."
"Now does it, indeed? It is part of your business, then?"
"Yes'm, we always help."
"How good it is of you. Some people would think it rather obtrusive, perhaps, but I don't--I think it is real kindness--even charity. Some people jump to conclusions without any thought--you have noticed that?"
"O yes," said the clerk, a little perplexed as to whether to feel comfortable or the reverse; "Oh yes, indeed, I've often noticed that, ma'm."
"Yes, they jump to conclusions with an absurd heedlessness. Now some people would think it odd that because you, with the budding tastes and the innocent enthusiasms natural to your time of life, enjoyed the Vampires and the volume of nursery jokes, you should imagine that an older person would delight in them too--but I do not think it odd at all.
I think it natural--perfectly natural in you. And kind, too. You look like a person who not only finds a deep pleasure in any little thing in the way of literature that strikes you forcibly, but is willing and glad to share that pleasure with others--and that, I think, is noble and admirable--very noble and admirable. I think we ought all--to share our pleasures with others, and do what we can to make each other happy, do not you?"
"Oh, yes. Oh, yes, indeed. Yes, you are quite right, ma'm."
But he was getting unmistakably uncomfortable, now, notwithstanding Laura's confiding sociability and almost affectionate tone.
"Yes, indeed. Many people would think that what a bookseller--or perhaps his clerk--knows about literature as literature, in contradistinction to its character as merchandise, would hardly, be of much assistance to a person--that is, to an *****, of course--in the selection of food for the mind--except of course wrapping paper, or twine, or wafers, or something like that--but I never feel that way. I feel that whatever service you offer me, you offer with a good heart, and I am as grateful for it as if it were the greatest boon to me. And it is useful to me--it is bound to be so. It cannot be otherwise. If you show me a book which you have read--not skimmed over or merely glanced at, but read--and you tell me that you enjoyed it and that you could read it three or four times, then I know what book I want--"
"Thank you!--th--"
--"to avoid. Yes indeed. I think that no information ever comes amiss in this world. Once or twice I have traveled in the cars--and there you know, the peanut boy always measures you with his eye, and hands you out a book of murders if you are fond of theology; or Tupper or a dictionary or T. S. Arthur if you are fond of poetry; or he hands you a volume of distressing jokes or a copy of the American Miscellany if you particularly dislike that sort of literary fatty degeneration of the heart--just for the world like a pleasant spoken well-meaning gentleman in any, bookstore. But here I am running on as if business men had nothing to do but listen to women talk. You must pardon me, for I was not thinking.--And you must let me thank you again for helping me.
I read a good deal, and shall be in nearly every day and I would be sorry to have you think me a customer who talks too much and buys too little.
Might I ask you to give me the time? Ah-two-twenty-two. Thank you very much. I will set mine while I have the opportunity."
But she could not get her watch open, apparently. She tried, and tried again. Then the clerk, trembling at his own audacity, begged to be allowed to assist. She allowed him. He succeeded, and was radiant under the sweet influences of her pleased face and her seductively worded acknowledgements with gratification. Then he gave her the exact time again, and anxiously watched her turn the hands slowly till they reached the precise spot without accident or loss of life, and then he looked as happy as a man who had helped a fellow being through a momentous undertaking, and was grateful to know that he had not lived in vain.
Laura thanked him once more. The words were music to his ear; but what were they compared to the ravishing smile with which she flooded his whole system? When she bowed her adieu and turned away, he was no longer suffering torture in the pillory where she had had him trussed up during so many distressing moments, but he belonged to the list of her conquests and was a flattered and happy thrall, with the dawn-light of love breaking over the eastern elevations of his heart.
It was about the hour, now, for the chairman of the House Committee on Benevolent Appropriations to make his appearance, and Laura stepped to the door to reconnoiter. She glanced up the street, and sure enough