"Appetite is too strong a word," said Jerry. "As far as books
are concerned the public is barely able to sit up and take a little
liquid nourishment. Solid foods don't interest it. If you try
to cram roast beef down the gullet of an invalid you'll kill him.
Let the public alone, and thank God when it comes round to amputate
any of its hard-earned cash."

"Well, take it on the lowest basis," said Roger. "I haven't
any facts to go upon----"

"You never have," interjected Jerry.

"But I'd like to bet that the Trade has made more money out of
Bryce's American Commonwealth than it ever did out of all Parson
Wright's books put together."

"What of it? Why shouldn't they make both?"

This preliminary tilt was interrupted by the arrival of two
more visitors, and Roger handed round mugs of cider, pointed to
the cake and the basket of pretzels, and lit his corn-cob pipe.
The new arrivals were Quincy and Fruehling; the former a clerk
in the book department of a vast drygoods store, the latter
the owner of a bookshop in the Hebrew quarter of Grand Street--
one of the best-stocked shops in the city, though little known
to uptown book-lovers.

"Well," said Fruehling, his bright dark eyes sparkling above richly
tinted cheek-bones and bushy beard, "what's the argument?"