“Where is he living now?” he asked.
“Last year he was living in New York—I am a widow, as you know—but last fall he went to Algiers.”
“The book says Algiers. What-er-clubs is he a member of?”
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Smith; “The Authors and The Century.”
“I have no doubt,” said the minister, “from what the book says, and what you say, that you are indeed the sister of this—ah—celebrated”—he looked at the book—“celebrated novelist, who is a man of such standing that he received—ah—several more lines in this work than the average, more, in fact, than Talmage, more than Beecher, and more than the present governor of the State of Iowa. I think I may safely advise Mrs. Bell to let Susan go with you.”
“One!” said Eliph' Hewlitt quickly. “That's just ONE question that came up flaring, and was mashed flat by Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, a book in which are ten thousand and one subjects, fully treated by the best minds of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. One subject for every day in the year for twenty-seven years, and some left over. Religion, politics, literature, every subject under the sun, gathered in one grand colossal encyclopedia with an index so simple that a child can understand it. See page 768, 'Texts, Biblical; Hints for Sermons; The Art of Pulpit Eloquence.' No minister should be without it. See page 1046, 'Pulpit Orators—Golden Words of the Greatest, comprising selections from Spurgeon, Robertson, Talmage, Beecher, Parkhurst,' et cetery. A book that should be in every home. Look at 'P': Poets, Great. Poison, Antidotes for. Poker, Rules of. Poland, History and Geography of, with Map. Pomeroy, Brick. Pomatum, How to Make. Ponce de Leon, Voyages and Life of. Pop, Ginger,' et cetery, et cetery. The whole for the small sum of five dollars, bound in cloth, one dollar down and one dollar a month until paid.”
The minister turned the pages slowly.
“It seems a worthy book,” he said hesitatingly.
Eliph' Hewlitt looked at Mrs. Smith, with a question in his eyes.
She nodded.