The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

things which I don’t really mean, when I am absent minded. I suppose I

did ask you, didn’t I?”

“No ma’m,–but I–”

“Yes, I must have done it, else you would not have offered your services,

for fear it might be rude. But don’t be troubled–it was all my fault.

I ought not to have been so heedless–I ought not to have asked you.”

“But you didn’t ask me, ma’m. We always help customers all we can.

You see our experience–living right among books all the time–that sort

of thing makes us able to help a customer make a selection, you know.”

“Now does it, indeed? It is part of your business, then?”

“Yes’m, we always help.”

“How good it is of you. Some people would think it rather obtrusive,

perhaps, but I don’t–I think it is real kindness–even charity. Some

people jump to conclusions without any thought–you have noticed that?”

“O yes,” said the clerk, a little perplexed as to whether to feel

comfortable or the reverse; “Oh yes, indeed, I’ve often noticed that,

ma’m.”

“Yes, they jump to conclusions with an absurd heedlessness. Now some

people would think it odd that because you, with the budding tastes and

the innocent enthusiasms natural to your time of life, enjoyed the

Vampires and the volume of nursery jokes, you should imagine that an

older person would delight in them too–but I do not think it odd at all.

I think it natural–perfectly natural in you. And kind, too. You look

like a person who not only finds a deep pleasure in any little thing in

the way of literature that strikes you forcibly, but is willing and glad

to share that pleasure with others–and that, I think, is noble and

admirable–very noble and admirable. I think we ought all–to share our

pleasures with others, and do what we can to make each other happy, do

not you?”

“Oh, yes. Oh, yes, indeed. Yes, you are quite right, ma’m.”

But he was getting unmistakably uncomfortable, now, notwithstanding

Laura’s confiding sociability and almost affectionate tone.

“Yes, indeed. Many people would think that what a bookseller–or perhaps

his clerk–knows about literature as literature, in contradistinction to

its character as merchandise, would hardly, be of much assistance to a

person–that is, to an adult, of course–in the selection of food for the

mind–except of course wrapping paper, or twine, or wafers, or something

like that–but I never feel that way. I feel that whatever service you

offer me, you offer with a good heart, and I am as grateful for it as if

it were the greatest boon to me. And it is useful to me–it is bound to

be so. It cannot be otherwise. If you show me a book which you have

read–not skimmed over or merely glanced at, but read–and you tell me

that you enjoyed it and that you could read it three or four times, then

I know what book I want–”

“Thank you!–th–”

–“to avoid. Yes indeed. I think that no information ever comes amiss

in this world. Once or twice I have traveled in the cars–and there you

know, the peanut boy always measures you with his eye, and hands you out

a book of murders if you are fond of theology; or Tupper or a dictionary

or T. S. Arthur if you are fond of poetry; or he hands you a volume of

distressing jokes or a copy of the American Miscellany if you

particularly dislike that sort of literary fatty degeneration of the

heart–just for the world like a pleasant spoken well-meaning gentleman

in any, bookstore. But here I am running on as if business men had

nothing to do but listen to women talk. You must pardon me, for I was

not thinking.–And you must let me thank you again for helping me.

I read a good deal, and shall be in nearly every day and I would be sorry

to have you think me a customer who talks too much and buys too little.

Might I ask you to give me the time? Ah-two-twenty-two. Thank you

very much. I will set mine while I have the opportunity.”

But she could not get her watch open, apparently. She tried, and tried

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