Or it may be the
rain again lashing against the streaming windows of the book store.
* * * * *
People come in out of the rain. A girl without an umbrella, her face wet.
Who? Perhaps a stenographer hunting a job and halted by the rain. And then
a matron with an old-fashioned knitted shopping bag. And a spinster with a
keen, kindly face. Others, too. They stand nervously idle, feeling that
they are taking up valuable space in an industrial establishment and
should perhaps make a purchase. So they permit their eyes to drift
politely toward the wares. And then the chatter of the books has them. Old
books, new books, live books, dead books--but they move carelessly away
and toward the bargain tables--"All Books 30 Cents." Broken down best
sellers here--pausing in their gavotte toward oblivion. The next step is
the junk man--$1 a hundred. Pembertons, Wrights, Farnols, Websters,
Johnstones, Porters, Wards and a hundred other names reminiscent more of a
page in the telephone book than a page out of a literary yesterday. The
little gavotte is an old dance in the second-hand book store. The
$2-shelf. The $1-rack. The 75-cent table. The 30-cent grab counter. And
finis.
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