bookseller is very demoralizing to the intellect," he
went on after a pause. "He is surrounded by innumerable books; he
cannot possibly read them all; he dips into one and picks up a scrap
from another. His mind gradually fills itself with miscellaneous
flotsam, with superficial opinions, with a thousand half-knowledges.
Almost unconsciously he begins to rate literature according to what
people ask for. He begins to wonder whether Ralph Waldo Trine isn't
really greater than Ralph Waldo Emerson, whether J. M. Chapple isn't as
big a man as J. M. Barrie. That way lies intellectual suicide.

"One thing, however, you must grant the good bookseller. He is
tolerant. He is patient of all ideas and theories. Surrounded,
engulfed by the torrent of men's words, he is willing to listen to them
all. Even to the publisher's salesman he turns an indulgent ear. He
is willing to be humbugged for the weal of humanity. He hopes
unceasingly for good books to be born.

"My business, you see, is different from most. I only deal in
second-hand books; I only buy books that I consider have some honest
reason for existence. In so far as human judgment can discern, I try
to keep trash out of my shelves. A doctor doesn't traffic in quack
remedies. I don't traffic in bogus books.

"A comical thing happened the other day. There is a certain wealthy
man, a Mr. Chapman, who has long frequented this shop----"

"I wonder if that could be Mr. Chapman of the Chapman Daintybits
Company?" said Gilbert, feeling his feet touch familiar soil.

"The same, I believe," said Mifflin. "Do you know him?"

"Ah," cried the young man with reverence. "There is a man who can tell
you the virtues of advertising. If he is interested in books, it is
advertising that made it possible. We handle all his copy--I've
written a lot of it myself. We have made the Chapman prunes a staple
of civilization and culture. I myself devised that slogan 'We preen
ourselves on our prunes' which you see in every big magazine. Chapman
prunes are known the world over. The Mikado eats them once a week.
The Pope eats them. Why, we have just heard that thirteen cases of
them are to be put on board the George Washington for the President's
voyage to the peace Conference. The Czecho-Slovak armies were fed
largely on prunes. It is our conviction in the office that our
campaign for the Chapman prunes did much to win the war."

"I read in an ad the other day--perhaps y