To the Editor of THE BOOKMAN:
DEAR SIR: Inspired by the desire to make
the acquaintance of Mr. Morley's interesting
bibliophile — he of the Haunted Bookshop of
Gissing Street, — and browse as long as I
liked among the "ghosts of all great literature
in hosts", I spent a full day in October
last ranging in vain the weird streets of
Brooklyn, until the late hour reminded me
that I was due to return to life the other side
of the bridge.
I then wrote to a friend, once a real
detective, who sleeps in the quiet portion of
New York, to search out this same Mifflin
man, to see if he could discover "Parnassus
at Home", and forthwith send me his
address. To assist him in his search I
enclosed Mr. Morley's delightful article in last
September's BOOKMAN.
After an interval of a few weeks he
replied:
"Do you remember Mrs. Harris? She is
the great aunt of your second-hand friend,
Mimin, who, as far as I can find, is but the
shadow of a dream; at least, he is of the
stuff that dreams are made of, and, like
Coriolanus, merely 'dwells under the canopy'.
I wore out two rubber heels, and gridironed
the heights, article in hand, walking a mile
either way on our soporific thoroughfares,
without finding the 'cure for malnutrition of
the reading faculties', or a trace of Gissing
Street'. The air was heavy with rain, and
the 'delightful fragrance (!) of mellowed
paper and leather surcharged with the strong
bouquet of tobacco' (i. e., old boots and
cigar stumps) was all pervasive — and I am
now heavy with a cold. Mifflin — well, believe
me, there ain't no sich a person!"
"Oh, ineffectual and inefficient!" I lamented
to my wife; "our sleuth says he cannot find
this philosopher Mifflin of Egg Samuel Butler
fame, he who created that 'pyramid,
based on toast, flaked with bacon, wreathed
with mushrooms and capped with red peppers'!"
"I should think his nose might have led
him to the spot", she returned — "you're
forgetting the 'warm pink dribble'!"
"If he had washed it down with honest
Zinfandel, instead of that 'sweet brown
California Catawba', I would have liked it
better" — I continued musingly.
My wife was bitterly disappointed.
Experiments in our kitchenette had resulted in
a wonderful rival pyramid, based, it is true,
upon the Egg Samuel Butler, but masonried
with even more varied and savory layers,
and she was anxious to meet this philosopher
of bookery and cookery and get
another of his suggestions:
"I can find that man — he cannot hide
himself from me and I will put him to the
blush with my Egg Samuel Weller!" she
exclaimed; "next time I will go with you".
So the following day we dove under the
river to Brooklyn in a fresh search for the
Haunted Bookshop. Only once during the
process did she open her lips: "Mifflin says
— 'Always wash dishes immediately after
meals — it saves trouble! Experientia docet,
evidently, while his wife's away ; I wonder
if he's learned also — 'Never sweep the dust
under the dresser — it makes trouble'. I'm
dying to know this wise saw-maker!"
Emerging from the subway at Burrow
Hall, we plunged into a maze of side-streets
and, promptly losing all sense of direction
and distance, began our search for Mifflin —
philosopher, cook, bookseller, and expounder
of character and books.
He was not in the telephone book, he was
not in the directory, he was not in Who's
Who, or the Social Register; and we wore
out our nerves and imperiled our Christian
dispositions trying to find Gissing Street, as,
from Burrow Hall to Hamilton Ferry, we
walked and walked and walked.
"I particularly wanted to ask him how
he'd ever come to like Emily Dickinson — a
shy woman, with poems to match", I said.
"And I am dying to find out how to make
that dribbling pink sauce", she said.
Then we walked and walked and walked
and walked.
It was in the late gloaming — Brooklyn's
silent prayer-meeting hour — when, baffled
and beaten, we retraced our steps, homeward
bound, guided from corner to corner by
purest instinct.
Attracted by a gleam in a trunk-maker's
window, my wife halted me: "Look, here
are books — plenty of books — can this be
Mifflin's? — whole editions piled on the floor
in vast quantities — do let us go in — what a
queer old place!" — And we entered the
dingy shop, where sat an aged Israelite in
shabby gabardine, smoking a pipe. Besides
the front window piled with new books, the
shop contained many shelves with dusty
rows of old tomes, and a sort of storeroom
filled with new trunks and suitcases together
with many handbags — all new and shiny.
On nails over a rusty stove hung a few worn
and battered cooking utensils.
The books, on closer inspection, proving
to be chiefly new "best sellers" — poems,
women's "Talks" on women's "Wants", old
store ledgers and unsalable "plugs", we were
about leaving, when the old man called after
us: "Vat you vants, peoples? Books? I
hal tons of fine sheep books — all vot a man
don't haf to read — I haf tirteen hundred
pounds of new poets a man don't hat to
know even de name. In all, understand me,
not vun ounce of common sense! How many
pound you buy, mister? Today I sell dem
to you sheep, for tomorrow dey go into my
boiling vat for to make drunks".
I noticed a dozen pounds or so of richly
bound gilt-edge volumes of vers libre on his
counter. There were many well advertised
names of our most famous living poets.
"I boil down two hundred pound of dem
free verses yesterday — dey cost me nutting
— I make clear profit out of dot free verse".
"So that is the end of free verse — free
trunks!"
"Nein, understand me, free drunks do not
come of free verse — if de verse is free I do
not look a gift ottermobile in der injine, — I
am glad dey make de verses free — can you
blame me? So I make clear profit".
It certainly seemed very reasonable.
"As to 'greatest American novels' — 'best
sellers' and 'famous' short stories", I
queried, "how do they go?"
"I dell you a segret-ven dey sell dem
best sellers in ten million edition, dey don't
do ut. Most come to me by de ton. Take it
from me, best sellers make best drunks".
"How do the uplift books go? The highbrows?"
"Oh, vell, dem easies (doubtless he meant
essays) by dem long-haired college brofessors,
undt dem clergymen's sermons — vell,
somedimes , it takes too long to boil dem
oudt. I pay half a cent a pound sheeper for
dot line o' goots" —
"And the emanations of our great statesmen?"
"Vell, I buy everyding by veight, so I get
great quantities of long speeches of Brine,
undt dem human orations of Woodrow — undt
dem long-vinded Congressional Reports,
undt de Leagues of Nations drafts — dey are
mostly vind, so I make much profit".
"How about newspapers and Sunday
magazines?"
"No use to me, mister, dey all go down de
bay as garbage".
"Tell me, oh scavenger of poets, why do
authors exist?"
"For to make drunks — I see no udder
reason".
"As to cook-books?" put in my wife,
hopelessly, "have you not saved out one of Mr.
Morley's?"
The old trunk-maker shook his head:
"Each lady today, understand me, she is her
own cook, and a cook-book never cooked a
meal yet".
"All made into trunks!" sighed my wife.
"See dem handsome Saratogas undt dem
vardrobes, lady?"
We hastily fled to the sidewalk, and left
the old Jew grinning in his greasy gabardine.
"I remember", said my wife, "that
Mifflin made use of 'a flake of bacon'."
"Alas, we'll have to give him up".
At the corner we turned and looked back.
Above the shop door a sudden electric sign
went up:
PARNASSUS AT HOME
R. AND H. MIFFLIN
BOOKLOVERS WELCOME!
☞THIS SHOP IS HAUNTED☜
J. S. WOOD
