The Haunted Bookshop

by Christopher Morley

  Chapter X

  Roger Raids the Ice-Box

  Roger had just put Carlyle's Cromwell back in its proper place in theHistory alcove when Helen and Titania returned from the movies. Bock,who had been dozing under his master's chair, rose politely and waggeda deferential tail.

  "I do think Bock has the darlingest manners," said Titania.

  "Yes," said Helen, "it's really a marvel that his wagging musclesaren't all worn out, he has abused them so."

  "Well," said Roger, "did you have a good time?"

  "An adorable time!" cried Titania, with a face and voice so sparklingthat two musty habitues of the shop popped their heads out of thealcoves marked ESSAYS and THEOLOGY and peered in amazement. One ofthese even went so far as to purchase the copy of Leigh Hunt's WishingCap Papers he had been munching through, in order to have an excuse toapproach the group and satisfy his bewildered eyes. When Miss Chapmantook the book and wrapped it up for him, his astonishment was madecomplete.

  Unconscious that she was actually creating business, Titania resumed.

  "We met your friend Mr. Gilbert on the street," she said, "and he wentto the movies with us. He says he's coming in on Monday to fix thefurnace while you're away."

  "Well," said Roger, "these advertising agencies are certainlyenterprising, aren't they? Think of sending a man over to attend to myfurnace, just on the slim chance of getting my advertising account."

  "Did you have a quiet evening?" said Helen.

  "I spent most of the time writing to Andrew," said Roger. "One amusingthing happened, though. I actually sold that copy of Philip Dru."

  "No!" cried Helen.

  "A fact," said Roger. "A man was looking at it, and I told him it wassupposed to be written by Colonel House. He insisted on buying it.But what a sell when he tries to read it!"

  "Did Colonel House really write it?" asked Titania.

  "I don't know," said Roger. "I hope not, because I find in myself asecret tendency to believe that Mr. House is an able man. If he didwrite it, I devoutly hope none of the foreign statesmen in Paris willlearn of that fact."

  While Helen and Titania took off their wraps, Roger was busy closing upthe shop. He went down to the corner with Bock to mail his letter, andwhen he returned to the den Helen had prepared a large jug of cocoa.They sat down by the fire to enjoy it.

  "Chesterton has written a very savage poem against cocoa," said Roger,"which you will find in The Flying Inn; but for my part I find it theideal evening drink. It lets the mind down gently, and paves the wayfor slumber. I have often noticed that the most terrific philosophicalagonies can be allayed by three cups of Mrs. Mifflin's cocoa. A mancan safely read Schopenhauer all evening if he has a tablespoonful ofcocoa and a tin of condensed milk available. Of course it should bemade with condensed milk, which is the only way."

  "I had no idea anything could be so good," said Titania. "Of course,Daddy makes condensed milk in one of his factories, but I never dreamedof trying it. I thought it was only used by explorers, people at theNorth Pole, you know."

  "How stupid of me!" exclaimed Roger. "I quite forgot to tell you!Your father called up just after you had gone out this evening, andwanted to know how you were getting on."

  "Oh, dear," said Titania. "He must have been delighted to hear I wasat the movies, on the second day of my first job! He probably said itwas just like me."

  "I explained that I had insisted on your going with Mrs. Mifflin,because I felt she needed the change."

  "I do hope," said Titania, "you won't let Daddy poison your mind aboutme. He thinks I'm dreadfully frivolous, just because I LOOK frivolous.But I'm so keen to make good in this job. I've been practicing doingup parcels all afternoon, so as to learn how to tie the string nicelyand not cut it until after the knot's tied. I found that when you cutit beforehand either you get it too short and it won't go round, orelse too long and you waste some. Also I've learned how to makewrapping paper cuffs to keep my sleeves clean."

  "Well, I haven't finished yet," continued Roger. "Your father wants usall to spend to-morrow out at your home. He wants to show us somebooks he has just bought, and besides he thinks maybe you're feelinghomesick."

  "What, with all these lovely books to read? Nonsense! I don't want togo home for six months!"

  "He wouldn't take No for an answer. He's going to send Edwards roundwith the car the first thing to-morrow morning."

  "What fun!" said Helen. "It'll be delightful."

  "Goodness," said Titania. "Imagine leaving this adorable bookshop tospend Sunday in Larchmont. Well, I'll be able to get that georgetteblouse I forgot."

  "What time will the car be here?" asked Helen.

  "Mr. Chapman said about nine o'clock. He begs us to get out there asearly as possible, as he wants to spend the day showing us his books."

  As they sat round the fading bed of coals, Roger began hunting alonghis private shelves. "Have you ever read any Gissing?" he said.

  Titania made a pathetic gesture to Mrs. Mifflin. "It's awfullyembarrassing to be asked these things! No, I never heard of him."

  "Well, as the street we live on is named after him, I think you oughtto," he said. He pulled down his copy of The House of Cobwebs. "I'mgoing to read you one of the most delightful short stories I know.It's called 'A Charming Family.'"

  "No, Roger," said Mrs. Mifflin firmly. "Not to-night. It's eleveno'clock, and I can see Titania's tired. Even Bock has left us and gonein to his kennel. He's got more sense than you have."

  "All right," said the bookseller amiably. "Miss Chapman, you take thebook up with you and read it in bed if you want to. Are you alibrocubicularist?"

  Titania looked a little scandalized.

  "It's all right, my dear," said Helen. "He only means are you fond ofreading in bed. I've been waiting to hear him work that word into theconversation. He made it up, and he's immensely proud of it."

  "Reading in bed?" said Titania. "What a quaint idea! Does any one doit? It never occurred to me. I'm sure when I go to bed I'm far toosleepy to think of such a thing."

  "Run along then, both of you," said Roger. "Get your beauty sleep. Ishan't be very late."

  He meant it when he said it, but returning to his desk at the back ofthe shop his eye fell upon his private shelf of books which he keptthere "to rectify perturbations" as Burton puts it. On this shelfthere stood Pilgrim's Progress, Shakespeare, The Anatomy of Melancholy,The Home Book of Verse, George Herbert's Poems, The Notebooks of SamuelButler, and Leaves of Grass. He took down The Anatomy of Melancholy,that most delightful of all books for midnight browsing. Turning toone of his favourite passages--"A Consolatory Digression, Containingthe Remedies of All Manner of Discontents"--he was happily lost to allticking of the clock, retaining only such bodily consciousness as wasneedful to dump, fill, and relight his pipe from time to time.Solitude is a dear jewel for men whose days are spent in the tediousthis-and-that of trade. Roger was a glutton for his midnight musings.To such tried companions as Robert Burton and George Herbert he waswont to exonerate his spirit. It used to amuse him to think of Burton,the lonely Oxford scholar, writing that vast book to "rectify" his ownmelancholy.

  By and by, turning over the musty old pages, he came to the following,on Sleep--

  The fittest time is two or three hours after supper, whenas the meat isnow settled at the bottom of the stomach, and 'tis good to lie on theright side first, because at that site the liver doth rest under thestomach, not molesting any way, but heating him as a fire doth akettle, that is put to it. After the first sleep 'tis not amiss to lieon the left side, that the meat may the better descend, and sometimesagain on the belly, but never on the back. Seven or eight hours is acompetent time for a melancholy man to rest----

  In that case, thought Roger, it's time for me to be turning in. Helooked at his watch, and found it was half-past twelve. He switchedoff his light and went back to the kitchen quarters to tend the furnace.

  I hesitate to touch upon
a topic of domestic bitterness, but candorcompels me to say that Roger's evening vigils invariably ended at theice-box. There are two theories as to this subject of ice-boxplundering, one of the husband and the other of the wife. Husbands areprone to think (in their simplicity) that if they take a little ofeverything palatable they find in the refrigerator, but thusdistributing their forage over the viands the general effect of thedepradation will be almost unnoticeable. Whereas wives say (and Mrs.Mifflin had often explained to Roger) that it is far better to take allof any one dish than a little of each; for the latter course is likelyto diminish each item below the bulk at which it is still useful as aleft-over. Roger, however, had the obstinate viciousness of all goodhusbands, and he knew the delights of cold provender by heart. Many astewed prune, many a mess of string beans or naked cold boiled potato,many a chicken leg, half apple pie, or sector of rice pudding, hadperished in these midnight festivals. He made it a point of honournever to eat quite all of the dish in question, but would pass withunabated zest from one to another. This habit he had sternly repressedduring the War, but Mrs. Mifflin had noticed that since the armisticehe had resumed it with hearty violence. This is a custom which causesthe housewife to be confronted the next morning with a tragical vistaof pathetic scraps. Two slices of beet in a little earthenware cup, asliver of apple pie one inch wide, three prunes lowly nestling in amere trickle of their own syrup, and a tablespoonful of stewed rhubarbwhere had been one of those yellow basins nearly full--what can themost resourceful kitcheneer do with these oddments? This atrociouspractice cannot be too bitterly condemned.

  But we are what we are, and Roger was even more so. The Anatomy ofMelancholy always made him hungry, and he dipped discreetly intovarious vessels of refreshment, sharing a few scraps with Bock whosepleading brown eye at these secret suppers always showed a comicalrealization of their shameful and furtive nature. Bock knew very wellthat Roger had no business at the ice-box, for the larger outlines ofsocial law upon which every home depends are clearly understood bydogs. But Bock's face always showed his tremulous eagerness toparticipate in the sin, and rather than have him stand by as a silentand damning critic, Roger used to give him most of the cold potato.The censure of a dog is something no man can stand. But I rove, asBurton would say.

  After the ice-box, the cellar. Like all true householders, Roger wasfond of his cellar. It was something mouldy of smell, but it harboureda well-stocked little bin of liquors, and the florid glow of thefurnace mouth upon the concrete floor was a great pleasure to thebookseller. He loved to peer in at the dancing flicker of small blueflames that played above the ruddy mound of coals in thefirebox--tenuous, airy little flames that were as blue as violets andhovered up and down in the ascending gases. Before blackening the firewith a stoking of coal he pulled up a wooden Bushmills box, turned offthe electric bulb overhead, and sat there for a final pipe, watchingthe rosy shine of the grate. The tobacco smoke, drawn inward by thehot inhaling fire, seemed dry and gray in the golden brightness. Bock,who had pattered down the steps after him, nosed and snooped about thecellar. Roger was thinking of Burton's words on the immortal weed--

  Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far beyondall the panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher's stones, a sovereignremedy to all diseases. . . . a virtuous herb, if it be well qualified,opportunely taken, and medicinally used; but as it is commonly abusedby most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, 'tis a plague, amischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish,and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul----

  Bock was standing on his hind legs, looking up at the front wall of thecellar, in which two small iron-grated windows opened onto the sunkenarea by the front door of the shop. He gave a low growl, and seemeduneasy.

  "What is it, Bock?" said Roger placidly, finishing his pipe.

  Bock gave a short, sharp bark, with a curious note of protest in it.But Roger's mind was still with Burton.

  "Rats?" he said. "Aye, very likely! This is Ratisbon, old man, butdon't bark about it. Incident of the French Camp: 'Smiling, the ratfell dead.'"

  Bock paid no heed to this persiflage, but prowled the front end of thecellar, looking upward in curious agitation. He growled again, softly.

  "Shhh," said Roger gently. "Never mind the rats, Bock. Come on, we'llstoke up the fire and go to bed. Lord, it's one o'clock."