e possibly a trifle
embittered, which is an excellent demeanour for mankind in the face of
inscrutable heaven. Long experience with publishers' salesmen makes
them suspicious of books praised between the courses of a heavy meal.

When a publisher's salesman takes you out to dinner, it is not
surprising if the conversation turns toward literature about the time
the last of the peas are being harried about the plate. But, as Jerry
Gladfist says (he runs a shop up on Thirty-Eighth Street) the
publishers' salesmen supply a long-felt want, for they do now and then
buy one a dinner the like of which no bookseller would otherwise be
likely to commit.

"Well, gentlemen," said Roger as his guests assembled in his little
cabinet, "it's a cold evening. Pull up toward the fire. Make free
with the cider. The cake's on the table. My wife came back from
Boston specially to make it."

"Here's Mrs. Mifflin's health!" said Mr. Chapman, a quiet little man
who had a habit of listening to what he heard. "I hope she doesn't
mind keeping the shop while we celebrate?"

"Not a bit," said Roger. "She enjoys it."

"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?"

"Appetite is too strong a word," said Jerry. "As far as books a