--The Reading Public. A Book Store Study
"Wish to look about the store? Oh, oh, by all means,
sir," he said. Then as he rubbed his hands together in
an urbane fashion he directed a piercing glance at me
through his spectacles.
"You'll find some things that might interest you," he
said, "in the back of the store on the left. We have
there a series of reprints--Universal Knowledge from
Aristotle to Arthur Balfour--at seventeen cents. Or
perhaps you might like to look over the Pantheon of Dead
Authors at ten cents. Mr. Sparrow," he called, "just show
this gentleman our classical reprints--the ten-cent
series."
With that he waved his hand to an assistant and dismissed
me from his thought.
In other words, he had divined me in a moment. There was
no use in my having bought a sage-green fedora in Broadway,
and a sporting tie done up crosswise with spots as big
as nickels. These little adornments can never hide the
soul within. I was a professor, and he knew it, or at
least, as part of his business, he could divine it on
the instant.
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