“He is a musician,” replied Mr. Madigan, “who will play the social game. He will invite some very rich people to his studio, the walls will be hung with the autographs he has just bought, and he’ll tell them about his ‘dear’ relics of his ancestors and will also point familiarly to his ‘dear’ friends the musicians and composers.
“If he succeeds in his game, he will keep the autographs, but most likely he will come back to me in six months or sooner, financially embarrassed, and will beg of me to buy them back.”
A well-known poet came in. Mr. Madigan took him to the back of the store. The poet wrote for a little while and then handed the sheet of paper to Madigan. A short conversation in subdued tones, and the poet left the shop. Madigan told me that the poet had written an extemporaneous ode on Oscar Wilde. “He often comes in,” Mr. Madigan continued, “for a chat and presents me quite frequently with a few lines of his poetry. Once he had not left the shop more than half an hour. I sold the poem he had just written to another friend of mine for ten dollars.”
An old lady entered. She unwrapped a parcel that she had carried under her arm. A lot of letters and photographs. I felt that she resented my presence during the coming transaction. I turned my back. I listened to a long lecture by Mr. Madigan about the cheapness and undesirability of the autographs which she offered to him for sale. Finally he offered a few dollars and the old lady, reluctantly, pocketed the money and left her parcel.
A young woman entered next—an interior decorator doing Mrs. Van X’s breakfast room. It had come into her head that Cardinal Richelieu’s picture and signature in that charming Louis Quatorze frame would be ideal between the lavender window hangings. She asked the price and had it sent.
A newspaper man was the next visitor. He wanted a picture of Stephen Crane, the poet, to illustrate a Sunday story. Mr. Madigan fished out a portrait from many others, card indexed and filed away in a specially constructed cabinet.
And so it goes on continuously, the whole day, buying and selling.
Schulte’s Book Store
Scattered about the throbbing city are a few quiet nooks and corners that seem especially made for the lover of antiques. They are not numerous, but full of a certain charm. Book stores, with big boxes in front of the doors, where you can choose for your pennies, tomes in old-fashioned binding and printing. Inside are shelves laden with books in delightful disorder left by the book-hunter who looked through them before you. The narrow passageway becomes narrower on each visit you pay to the shop because of newly-arrived books and pamphlets.
A long vista of boxes and cases well filled with a delightful miscellany of books marks the front of Mr. Schulte’s book store on the southwest corner of 23rd Street and Lexington Avenue. Don’t cast suspicious looks at the nice girls in immaculate white blouses who loiter about the aisles. They won’t interfere with you. They won’t ask you any questions. You will soon feel at home after you have glanced at the titles of the books on any shelf, and if you meet Mr. Schulte he won’t be a stranger to you. There is such a deep-founded relationship between the man and his books and customers. He is the appreciative, sympathetic co-collector and, after you have gained his confidence, if the friendship is mutual, he will spread out his gems before you: a first edition with a rare imprint, or some unknown etching by Whistler or Haden or Zorn.