"I see Tarzan of the Apes is running at the Gissing Street movie palace,"
said Gladfist. "Great stuff. Have you seen it?"

"Not while I can still read The Jungle Book," said Roger.

"You make me tired with that talk about literature," cried Jerry.
"A book's a book, even if Harold Bell Wright wrote it."

"A book's a book if you enjoy reading it," amended Meredith, from a big
Fifth Avenue bookstore. "Lots of people enjoy Harold Bell Wright
just as lots of people enjoy tripe. Either of them would kill me.
But let's be tolerant."

"Your argument is a whole succession of non sequiturs," said Jerry,
stimulated by the cider to unusual brilliance.

"That's a long putt," chuckled Benson, the dealer in rare books
and first editions.

"What I mean is this," said Jerry. "We aren't literary critics.
It's none of our business to say what's good and what isn't. Our
job is simply to supply the public with the books it wants when it
wants them. How it comes to want the books it does is no concern
of ours."

"You're the guy that calls bookselling the worst business in the world,"
said Roger warmly, "and you're the kind of guy that makes it so.
I suppose you would say that it is no concern of the bookseller to try
to increase the public appetite for books?"