in a book looks well in a store. The real customers like
it.

So it was that even so up-to-date a manager as Mr. Sellyer
tolerated my presence in a back corner of his store: and
so it was that I had an opportunity of noting something
of his methods with his real customers--methods so
successful, I may say, that he is rightly looked upon by
all the publishing business as one of the mainstays of
literature in America.

I had no intention of standing in the place and listening
as a spy. In fact, to tell the truth, I had become
immediately interested in a new translation of the Moral
Discourses of Epictetus. The book was very neatly printed,
quite well bound and was offered at eighteen cents; so
that for the moment I was strongly tempted to buy it,
though it seemed best to take a dip into it first.

I had hardly read more than the first three chapters when
my attention was diverted by a conversation going on in
the front of the store.

"You're quite sure it's his LATEST?" a fashionably dressed
lady was saying to Mr. Sellyer.

"Oh, yes, Mrs. Rasselyer," answered the manager. "I assure
you this is his very latest. In fact, they only came in
yesterday."