generations of plumbers and
cockroaches. The owner of the business has been at pains to remodel
the house to make it a more suitable shrine for his trade, which deals
entirely in second-hand volumes. There is no second-hand bookshop in
the world more worthy of respect.

It was about six o'clock of a cold November evening, with gusts of rain
splattering upon the pavement, when a young man proceeded uncertainly
along Gissing Street, stopping now and then to look at shop windows as
though doubtful of his way. At the warm and shining face of a French
rotisserie he halted to compare the number enamelled on the transom
with a memorandum in his hand. Then he pushed on for a few minutes, at
last reaching the address he sought. Over the entrance his eye was
caught by the sign:

PARNASSUS AT HOME
R. AND H. MIFFLIN
BOOKLOVERS WELCOME!
THIS SHOP IS HAUNTED

He stumbled down the three steps that led into the dwelling of the
muses, lowered his overcoat collar, and looked about.

It was very different from such bookstores as he had been accustomed to
patronize. Two stories of the old house had been thrown into one: the
lower space was divided into little alcoves; above, a gallery ran round
the wall, which carried books to the ceiling. The air was heavy with
the delightful fragrance of mellowed paper and leather surcharged with
a strong bouquet of tobacco. In front of him he found a large placard
in a frame:

THIS SHOP IS HAUNTED by the ghosts
Of all great literature, in hosts;

We sell no fakes or trashes.
Lovers of books are welcome here,
No clerks will babble in your ear,

Please smoke--but don't drop ashes!
----
Browse as long as you like.
Prices of all books plainly marked.
If you want to ask questions, you'll find the proprietor
where the tobacco smoke is thickest.
We pay cash for books.
We have what you want, though you may not know you want it.

Malnutrition of the reading faculty is a serious thing.

Let us prescribe for you.

By R. & H. MIFFLIN,
Proprs.

The shop had a warm and comfortable obscurity, a kind of drowsy dusk,
stabbed here and there by bright cones of yellow light from
green-shaded electrics. There was an all-pervasive drift of tobacco
smo