?"

"Yes."

"Well, this is the _right_ place. Mother said to go to 1232. I guess
she knows. She's an old customer."

"_The Egg-beater! The Egg-beater!_" the blithe young novelist to whom
Erlcort told the story repeated. He was still happy in his original
success as a best-seller, and he had come to the Critical Bookstore to
spy out the stock and see whether his last novel was in it; but though
it was not, he joyously extended an acquaintance with Erlcort which
had begun elsewhere. "_The Egg-beater?_ What a splendid title for a
story of adventure! Keep the secret of its applicability to the last
word, or perhaps never reveal it at all, and leave the reader
worrying. That's one way; makes him go and talk about the book to all
the girls he knows and get them guessing. Best ad. in the world. _The
Egg-beater!_ Doesn't it suggest desert islands and penguins' nests in
the rocks? Fellow and girl shipwrecked, and girl wants to make an
omelette after they've got sick of plain eggs, and can't for want of
an egg-beater. Heigh? He invents one--makes it out of some wire that
floats off from the wreck. See? When they are rescued, she brings it
away, and doesn't let him know it till their Iron Wedding Day. They
keep it over his study fireplace always."

This author was the first to stretch his legs before Erlcort's fire
from his seat on one of the reproductions. He could not say enough of
the beauty of the place, and he asked if he might sit there and watch
for the old codger's old customers coming to buy hardware. There might
be copy in it.

But the old customers did not come so often as he hoped and Erlcort
feared. Instead there came _bona fide_ book-buyers, who asked some for
a book and some for a particular book. The first were not satisfied
with the books that Erlcort or his acting saleslady recommended, and
went away without buying. The last were indignant at not finding what
they wanted in Erlcort's selection.

"Why don't you stock it?" they demanded.

"Because I don't think it's worth reading."

"Oh, indeed!" The sarcastic customers were commonly ladies. "I
thought you let the public judge of that!"

"There are bookstores where they do. This is a critical bookstore. I
sell only the books that _I_ think worth reading. If you had noticed
my sign--"

"Oh!" the customer would say, and she, too, would go away without
buying.

There were other ladies who came, links of the endless chain of
volunteer readers who had tr