THE BOOK-BUYER.
There was plenty to eat, the landlord said, if the commercial gentlemen made no objection to my joining their table; and such objection was very unlikely, since nicer gentlemen you couldn't hope to meet.
He then went off to put the point to them, and they seem to have been very charming about it, judging by the cordiality and courtesy of the welcome which I received. Being, however, at the end of the table, I had but one neighbour, and he not a very communicative one, for, although he did at once lay down his knife and fork to tell me that the beef came from Scotland and was therefore more to be desired than the mutton, which was local, he said no more, and I was therefore left to eat in silence, my two vis-à-vis being engaged in a private conversation. Such little as from time to time I heard among the others was not much in my line, dealing as it did either with horses, Ulster, or Mexico; but suddenly a big man with a purple face and a signet ring as large as a carriage lamp plunged me into curiosity by remarking that he "never bought less than three two-shilling books a week, and sometimes four."
These being the last words I should have expected from him, for he looked absolutely the type that reads only a half-penny daily and a sporting sheet and puts in the rest of its leisure at gossip or cards, and as I am interested in people's taste in literature, I determined to improve his acquaintance and discover something as to his favourite authors; and again, as I made this resolve, I realised how foolish it is ever to expect the outside of a man to be any index of his mind. One never can tell, and one is always having further proof that one never can tell, and yet one goes on trying to tell.
Studying him in a series of glances, I set him down for a Nat Gould man.
The arrival of coffee and the departure of certain guests (wisely, as it happened,) who did not want that curious beverage, relaxed the table, and I moved up to the brave buyer of books. He received me affably, and we exchanged a few remarks on those ice-breaking matters of no importance upon which real convictions are not expected. Then, with a deft touch, I turned the talk to literature. "I suppose," I said, "with your long journeys you get plenty of time for reading?"
"Time enough," he said.
I continued by a reference to the advantages which we enjoyed over our fathers and grandfathers in the multiplicity of cheap books. "Those wonderful sevenpennies!" I said.
He agreed. He had often spent ten minutes at a junction in looking at them.
"And the shilling books," I said. "The more serious ones—'Everyman's Library,' and all that sort of thing. Most remarkable!"