III.
“Alas!” exclaimed the hapless Abner Skipp, next morning, “it seems as if nothing was being published this fall except popular novels, and I obtained an average of less than twenty cents on [p 211] />]the last sackload I took to town, not counting the dead ones which I sold to the junkman.”
“If only there were some way of keeping them alive for a few days longer!” said Mrs. Skipp. “If one could only stimulate the heart action by injecting strychnine!”
“Or even embalm them,” said Abner, sharing his wife’s grewsome humor. “But no; it is impossible to deceive a second-hand bookseller. He seems to know to the minute when a novel is dead, and declines to turn his shop into a literary morgue.” The poor man sighed. “If my employers would send me a few volumes of biography, or an encyclopedia, or a set of Shakespeare, we could easily meet the interest on the mortgage.”
“I wish, Abner, that I could be of more help to you,” said Mrs. Skipp. “If I could break myself of the habit of glancing at the last chapter of a novel before reviewing it, I could do ever so many more. Angelica is even more thoughtless than I. The poor child declares that some of the stories look so interesting that she forgets her work completely and actually begins to read them. As for Grandpa, he always was a great reader, and consequently has no head at all for reviewing.”
“If Harold were a few years older——” mused Abner. “But there, wife, we must not spend in [p 212] />]vain repining the scant hours allotted to us for sleep. Perhaps the expressman will bring us some scientific books to-morrow. Quite a number were on Appletree’s fall list.”
Abner Skipp kissed his wife affectionately, and presently the house was dark and still. Mrs. Skipp, worn out by the day’s work, went quickly to sleep; but Abner, haunted by the mortgage, passed a restless night. Several times he fancied he heard a noise in the cellar, as if the expressman were dumping another ton of books into the bin. At last, just before dawn, there came a loud thump, as if a volume of Herbert Spencer’s Autobiography had fallen to the floor. Getting out of bed quietly so that his weary wife should not be disturbed, Abner went to the cellar stairway and listened.
A clicking sound was distinctly audible, and a faint light gleamed below.