New scribblings crowd for place, old scribblings exeunt.
The girl without an umbrella studies titles. A love story, of course, and
only thirty cents. An opened page reads, "he took her in his arms...." Who
would not buy such a book on a rainy day?
* * * * *
It rains and other people come in. A middle-aged man in a curious coat, a
curious hat and a curious face. Slate-colored skin, slate-colored eyes
behind silver spectacles. A scholar in caricature, an Old Clothes Dealer
out of Alice in Wonderland. The rain runs from his stringy, slate-colored
hair. He approaches the high shelves, thrusts the silver spectacles
farther down on his nose. In front of him a curious row of literary
gargoyles--"The Astral Light," "What and Where Is God?", "Man" by Dohony
of Texas, "The Star of the Magi."
Thin slate-colored fingers fumble nervously over the title backs. A second
man, figure short, squat, red-faced, crowds the erratic scholar. A third.
The rain is bringing them in in numbers. These are the basement students
of the gargoyle philosophies, the gargoyle sciences, the gargoyle
religions. Perpetual motion machine inventors, alchemists with staring,
nervous-eyed medieval faces, fourth dimensionists, sun worshippers,
cabalistic researchers, voodoo authorities--the old-book store is suddenly
alive with them.
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