The World Of Chance. William Dean Howells
Читать онлайн книгу.
clerk pleased, the clerk asked if he would not take a chair in Mr. Brandreth's room.
Ray could not help thinking the civility shown him was for an imaginable customer rather than a concealed author, but he accepted it all the same, and sat looking out into the salesroom, with its counters of books, and its shelves full of them around its walls, while he waited. Chapley & Co. were of the few old-fashioned publishers who had remained booksellers too, in a day when most publishers have ceased to be so. They were jobbers as well as booksellers; they took orders and made terms for public and private libraries; they had customers all over the country who depended on them for advice and suggestion about forth-coming books, and there were many booksellers in the smaller cities who bought through them. The bookseller in Midland, who united bookselling with a stationery and music business, was one of these, and he had offered Ray a letter to them.
" If you ever want to get a book published," he said, with a touch on the quick that made the conscious author wince, " they're your men."
Ray knew their imprint and its relative value better than the Midland bookseller, stationer, and music-dealer; and now, as he sat in the junior partner's neat little den, with the letter of introduction in his hand, it seemed to him such a crazy thing to think of having his book brought out by them that he decided not to say anything about it, but to keep to that character of literary newspaper man which his friend gave him in his rather florid letter. He had leisure enough to make this decision and unmake it several times while he was waiting for Mr. Brandreth to come. It was so early that, with all the delays Ray had forced, it was still only a little after nine, and no one came in for a quarter of an hour. The clerks stood about and chatted together. The bookkeepers, in their high-railed enclosure, were opening their ledgers under the shaded gas-burners that helped out the twilight there. Ray could see his unknown street friend scanning the books on the upper shelf and moving his person from side to side, and letting his cane rise and fall behind him as if he were humming to himself and keeping time to the tune.
VIII.
The distant street door opened at last, and a gentleman came in. His entrance caused an indefinite sensation in the clerks, such as we all feel in the presence of the man who pays our wages. At the sound of his step, Ray's street friend turned about from his shelf, but without offering to leave it.
" Ah, good-morning, good-morning! " he called out; and the other called back, "Ah, good-morning, Mr. Kane! " and pushed on up towards a door near that of Ray's retreat. A clerk stopped him, and after a moment's parley he came in upon the young fellow. He was a man of fifty-five or sixty, with whiskers slightly frosted, and some puckers and wrinkles about his temples and at the corners of his mouth, and a sort of withered bloom in his cheeks, something like the hardy self-preservation of the late-hanging apple that people call a frozen-thaw. He was a thin man, who seemed once to have been stouter; he had a gentle presence and a somewhat careworn look.
" Mr. Brandreth? " Ray said, rising.
" No," said the other; " Mr. Chapley."
"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Ray. "They showed me into Mr. Brandreth's room, and I thought " —
"It's quite right, quite right," said Mr. Chapley. " Mr. Brandreth will be in almost any moment if you wish to see him personally." Mr. Chapley glanced at the parcel in Ray's hand.
"Oh no; I have a letter for the firm," and Ray gave it to Mr. Chapley, who read it through and then offered his hand, and said he was glad to meet Mr. Ray. He asked some questions of commonplace friendliness about his correspondent, and he said, with the kind of melancholy which seemed characteristic of him: " So you have come to take a hand in the great game here. Well, if there is anything I can do to serve you, I shall be very glad."
Ray answered promptly, in pursuance of his plan: "You are very kind, Mr. Chapley. I'm going to write letters to the paper I've been connected with in Midland, and I wish to give them largely a literary character. I shall be obliged to you for any literary news you have."
Mr. Chapley seemed relieved of a latent dread. A little knot of anxiety between his eyes came untied; he did not yet go to the length of laying off his light overcoat, but he set his hat down on Mr. Brandreth's desk, and he loosed the grip he had kept of his cane.
" Why, Mr. Brandreth rather looks after that side of the business. He's more in touch with the younger men — with what's going on, in fact, than I am. He can tell you all there is about our own small affairs, and put you in relations with other publishers, if you wish."
" Thank you — " Ray began.
" Not at all; it will be to our advantage, I'm sure. We should be glad to do much more for any friend of our old friends " — Mr. Chapley had to refer to the letter-head of the introduction before he could make sure of his old friends' style — " Schmucker & Wills. I hope they are prospering in these uncertain times? "
Ray said they were doing very well, he believed, and Mr. Chapley went on.
" So many of the local booksellers are feeling the competition of the large stores which have begun to deal in books as well as everything else under the sun, nowadays. I understand they have completely disorganized the book trade in some of our minor cities; completely! They take hold of a book like Robert Elsmere, for instance, as if it were a piece of silk that they control the pattern of, and run it at a price that is simply ruinous; besides doing a large miscellaneous business in books at rates that defy all competition on the part of the regular dealers. But perhaps you haven't suffered from these commercial monstrosities yet in Midland? "
" Oh, yes," said Ray; " We have our local Stewart's or Macy's, whichever it is; and I imagine Schmucker & Wills feel it, especially at the holidays." He had never had to buy any books himself, because he got the copies sent to the Echo for review; and now, in deference to Mr. Chapley, he was glad that he had not shared in the demoralization of the book trade. " But I think," he added, cheerfully, " that they are holding their own very well."
" I am very glad to hear it, very glad, indeed," said Mr. Chapley. " If we can only get this international copyright measure through and dam up the disorganizing tide of cheap publications at its source, we may hope to restore, the tone of the trade. As it is, we are ourselves constantly restricting our enterprise as publishers. We scarcely think now of looking at the manuscript of an unknown author."
Mr. Chapley looked at the manuscript of the unknown author before him, as if he divined it through its wrappings of stiff manila paper. Ray had no reason to think that he meant to prevent a possible offer of manuscript, but he could not help thinking so, and it cut him short in the inquiries he was going to make as to the extent of the demoralization the book trade had suffered through the competition of the large variety stores. He had seen a whole letter for the Echo in the subject, but now he could not go on. He sat blankly staring at Mr. Chapley's friendly, pensive face, and trying to decide whether he had" better get himself away without seeing Mr. Brandreth, or whether he had better stay and meet him, and after a cold, formal exchange of civilities, shake the dust of Chapley & Co.'s publishing house from his feet forever. The distant street door opened again, and a small light figure, much like his own, entered briskly. Mr. Kane turned about at the new-comer's step as he had turned at Mr. Chapley's, and sent his cheerful hail across the book counters as before. '' Ah, good morning, good morning! "
"Good morning, Mr. Kane; magnificent day," said the gentleman, who advanced rapidly towards Ray and Mr. Chapley, with a lustrous silk hat on his head, and a brilliant smile on his face. His overcoat hung on his arm, and he looked fresh and warm as if from a long walk. "Ah, good-morning," he said to Mr. Chapley; "how are you this morning, sir?" He bent his head inquiringly towards Ray, who stood a moment while Mr. Chapley got himself together and said:
" This is Mr. — ah — Ray, who brings a letter from our old friends " — he had to glance at the letter-head — "Schmucker & Wills, of — Midland."
" Ah! Midland! yes," said Mr. Brandreth, for Ray felt it was he, although his name had not been mentioned yet. " Very glad to see you, Mr. Ray. When did you leave Midland?