"I suppose it's quite a safe book, is it?" asked the
widow. "I want it for my little daughter."

"Oh, quite safe," said Mr. Sellyer, with an almost parental
tone, "in fact, written quite in the old style, like the
dear old books of the past--quite like"--here Mr. Sellyer
paused with a certain slight haze of doubt visible in
his eye--"like Dickens and Fielding and Sterne and so
on. We sell a great many to the clergy, madam."

The lady bought Golden Dreams, received it wrapped up in
green enamelled paper, and passed out.

"Have you any good light reading for vacation time?"
called out the next customer in a loud, breezy voice--he
had the air of a stock broker starting on a holiday.

"Yes," said Mr. Sellyer, and his face almost broke into
a laugh as he answered, "here's an excellent thing--Golden
Dreams--quite the most humorous book of the season--simply
screaming--my wife was reading it aloud only yesterday.
She could hardly read for laughing."

"What's the price, one dollar? One-fifty. All right,
wrap it up." There was a clink of money on the counter,
and the customer was gone. I began to see exactly where
professors and college people who want copies of Epictetus
at 18 cents and sections of World Reprints of Literature
at 12 cents a section come in, in the book trade.