Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/103

day I saw in just such a place first editions of Kenneth Grahame's "The Golden Age" and Arthur Machen's "The Three Impostors," which the storekeeper was delighted to sell for fifteen cents each.

A dark young man was behind the tobacco counter, and from him I got a packet of my usual blend.

"Mr. Basswood in?" said Dulcet.

"Just stepped out," said the young man.

We lit our pipes and looked round the shop, glancing at the magazines and the queer miscellany of books. As it was approaching Christmas time there was a profuse assortment of those dreadful little bibelots that go by the name of "gift books," among which were the usual copies of "Recessional" and "Vampire," Thoreau's "Friendship," and "Ballads of a Cheechako," bound in what the trade calls "padded ooze". I was particularly heartened to observe that one of these atrocities, called "As a Man Thinketh," was described on the box (for all such books come in little cardboard cases) as being bound in antique yap. This pleased me so much that I was about to call it to Dulcet's attention, when I saw that he was looking at me from the rear of the store with a spark in his eye. I approached and found that he was