“Just out, miss. Three and sixpence.”
“Who is the author?” asked the girl.
“Kenan Buel, a new man,” answered the clerk, without a moment’s hesitation, and without looking at the title-page. “Very clever work.”
Buel was astonished at the knowledge shown by the clerk. He knew that W.H. Smith & Son never had a book of his before, and he wondered how the clerk apparently knew so much of the volume and its author, forgetting that it was the clerk’s business. The girl listlessly ran the leaves of the book past the edge of her thumb. It seemed to Buel that the fate of the whole edition was in her hands, and he watched her breathlessly, even forgetting how charming she looked. There stood the merchant eager to sell, and there, in the form of a young woman, was the great public. If she did not buy, why should any one else; and if nobody bought, what chance had an unknown author?
She put the book down, and looked up as she heard some one sigh deeply near her.
“Have you Hodden’s new book?” she asked.
“Yes, miss. Six shillings.”
The clerk quickly put Buel’s book beside its lone companion, and took down Hodden’s.
“Thank you,” said the girl, giving him a half sovereign; and, taking the change, she departed with her bundle of literature to the train.
Buel said afterwards that what hurt him most in this painful incident was the fact that if it were repeated often the bookstall clerk would lose faith in the book. He had done so well for a man who could not possibly have read a word of the volume, that Buel felt sorry on the clerk’s account rather than his own that the copy had not been sold. He walked to the end of the platform, and then back to the bookstall.