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What is it about?" "It's an extremely POWERFUL thing," said Mr. It has a " and here Mr. Sellyer paused, and somehow his manner reminded me of my own when I am explaining to a university class something that I don't know myself "It has a a POWER, so to speak a very exceptional power; in fact, one may say without exaggeration it is the most POWERFUL book of the month.
We'll try them for another day and then cut them right out. And I'll drop round to Dockem & Discount, the publishers, and make a kick about them, and see what they'll do." I felt that I had lingered long enough. I drew near with the Epictetus in my hand. "Yes, sir," said Mr. Sellyer, professional again in a moment. "Epictetus? A charming thing. Eighteen cents. Thank you.
As he spoke, he indicated with his hand a huge pile of books, gayly jacketed in white and blue. I could make out the title in big gilt lettering GOLDEN DREAMS. "Oh, yes," repeated Mr. Sellyer. "This is Mr. Slush's latest book. It's having a wonderful sale." "That's all right, then," said the lady.
Sellyer shook his head. "Oh, no," he said; "you see, they won't READ it. They never do." "But at any rate," I insisted, "your wife thought it a fine story." Mr. Sellyer smiled widely. "I am not married, sir," he said. The Anecdotes of Dr. So and So That is not really his name. I merely call him that from his manner of talking.
Sellyer, and his face almost broke into a laugh as he answered, "here's an excellent thing Golden Dreams quite the most humorous book of the season simply screaming my wife was reading it aloud only yesterday. She could hardly read for laughing." "What's the price, one dollar? One-fifty. All right, wrap it up." There was a clink of money on the counter, and the customer was gone.
Everybody likes to be taken into the details of technical business; and of course everybody likes to know that a bookseller is losing money. These, I realised, were two axioms in the methods of Mr. Sellyer. So very naturally Mrs. Rasselyer bought Among the Monkeys, and in another moment Mr.
"Oh, it does not matter," said the lady; "of course I didn't read them. I gave them to my maid. She probably wouldn't know the difference, anyway." "I suppose not," said Mr. Sellyer, with a condescending smile. "But of course, madam," he went on, falling into the easy chat of the fashionable bookman, "such mistakes are bound to happen sometimes. We had a very painful case only yesterday.
And then from a curiosity that had been growing in me and that I couldn't resist, "That book Golden Dreams," I said, "you seem to think it a very wonderful work?" Mr. Sellyer directed one of his shrewd glances at me. He knew I didn't want to buy the book, and perhaps, like lesser people, he had his off moments of confidence. He shook his head. "A bad business," he said.
Sellyer was directing a clerk to write down an address on Fifth Avenue, and was bowing deeply as he showed the lady out of the door. As he turned back to his counter his manner seemed much changed. "That Monkey book," I heard him murmur to his assistant, "is going to be a pretty stiff proposition." But he had no time for further speculation. Another lady entered.
"I suppose it's quite a safe book, is it?" asked the widow. "I want it for my little daughter." "Oh, quite safe," said Mr. Sellyer, with an almost parental tone, "in fact, written quite in the old style, like the dear old books of the past quite like" here Mr. Sellyer paused with a certain slight haze of doubt visible in his eye "like Dickens and Fielding and Sterne and so on.
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