For my own ends I kept a kind of librarian's ledger, in which was
entered, under the author's name, every book that ever went out,
together with its successive dates of departure and return. This
amateurish scheme may not have been worth the labour it entailed, in
spare moments at the counter or last thing at night, after a turn-over
of perhaps a hundred volumes, many of which needed new labels before
retiring to the shelf. But I was never sorry I had let myself in for it.
Theoretically, one had only to look up a book in this ledger to tell
whether it was in or out; but in practice my reward was not then, but is
now, when I can see at a glance who really were our popular authors, and
which books of theirs were never without a partner, and which proved
wall-flowers.
Statistics, however, are notoriously bad witnesses; and some of mine
would not stand cross-examination. Thus, take him for all in all, the
author of _The First Hundred Thousand_ may add the blue ribbon of the
Rest Hut to his collection; but then, we had practically all his books,
and some of them four or five deep. Nor was the one that had more
outings than anything of anybody's on our shelves on that account the
most popular; it may even have been the author's nearest approach to a
bad penny. On the other hand, our four copies of _The First Hundred
Thousand_ were out almost as long as we were open, and all four 'failed
to return.' As for its sequel, our only copy eloped with its first
partner: had all our authors been Ian Hays there would have been no
carrying on the library after the first hundred thousand seconds.
The run on these two books was the more noteworthy in view of the
fighting reader's distaste for 'shop.' It was the flattering exception
to a very human rule; for I find, taking a good many days at random,
that while all but thirteen of every hundred issues were novels, less
than three of the thirteen were books about the war. Some forty-nine
readers out of fifty wanted something that would take them out of khaki,
and nearly nine out of ten pinned their faith to fiction.
How many preferred a really good novel is another and a more invidious
matter; but nothing was more refreshing than the way the older masters
held their own. Dickens was in constant demand, especially among the
older men; and they really read him, judging by the days the immortal
works stayed out. Again, it was worth noting that here in France _A
Tale of Two Cities_ had twice as many readers as _Pickwick_, which came
next in order of popularity. Thackeray was not fully represented, but we
had all his best and they were always out. Of the Brontes we had next to
nothing, of Reade and Trollope far too little; but _It is Never too Late
to Mend_ enchanted a Sapper, a Machine Gunner, and a Red Cross man in
turn, while _Orley Farm_ would have headed our first day's list had it
been there in time. George Eliot was never without readers, but Miss
Braddon had more, and _The Woman in White_ only one! After Dickens,
however, the most popular Victorian was the first Lord Lytton.
I confess it rejoiced my heart to hand out the protagonists of a
belittled age at least as freely as their 'opposite numbers' of the
present century. But I had my surprises. Scott (Sir Walter!) was a firm
wall-flower for the first fortnight; probably the Jocks knew him off by
heart; and, of course, the same thing may apply to their unnatural
neglect of the so-called Kaleyard School of other days. There was, at
any rate, nothing clannish about their reading. It was a Jock who took
_The Unspeakable Scot_ for its only airing; and more than three-fourths
of my Stevensonians were Sassenachs. But one could still conjure with
the name of Stevenson, as with many another made in his time. Mr.
Kipling's soldiers are adored by legions created in their image. Sir H.
Rider Haggard was never on the Rest House shelf. Messrs. Holmes and
Watson were the most flourishing of old firms, and Gerard the only
Brigadier taken seriously at my counter. Ruritania, too, got back some
of its own trippers from the Five Towns; for though you would have
thought there was adventure enough in the air we breathed, there was
more realism, and it was against the realism we all reacted. Mr.
Bennett, to be sure, did not occupy nearly enough space in our
capricious catalogue; neither, for that matter, did Mr. Weyman, Mr.
Galsworthy, Mr. Vachell, nor yet Miss Marie Corelli or Sir Thomas Hall
Caine. The fault was not mine, I can assure them.
Mr. H. G. Wells, on the other hand, utilised a better chance by tying
with the author of _Arsene Lupin_, and just beating Mr. Phillips
Oppenheim, for a place it would be unprofitable to compute. Even they
could not live the pace of Mr. Charles Garvice, who in his turn
succumbed to the lady styled the Baroness Horsy by her fondest slaves;
to these two and to Miss Ethel Dell, among others I have or have not
presumed to mention, I could wish no greater joy than my job at that
counter when their books were coming in, and 'another by the same
author, if you've got one,' being urgently demanded in their place. The
most enthusiastic letter ever written for an autograph could not touch
the eager tone, the live eye, the parted lips of those unconscious
tributes. It is not the look you see in Mudie's as you wait your turn;
but I have seen it in small boys chasing pirates with 'Ballantyne the
Brave,' and in one old lady who fell in love every Sunday of her dear
life with the hero of _The Family Herald Supplement_. It was even better
worth seeing in a soldier with _Just a Girl_ in his ruthless hand, and
_The One Girl in the World_ trembling on a reverential tongue. The man
might have been performing prodigies of dreadful valour up the Line, but
his soul had been on leave with a lady in marble halls.
There were two young Privates in the A.S.C. who bolted their Garvice at
about two days to the book; and two trim Corporals of the Rifle Brigade
who made as short work of the other magicians. This type of reader
always hunted in couples, sharing the most sympathetic of all the
passions, if not the books themselves, which would double the rate of
consumption. They were the hard drinkers at my bar; but the hardest of
all was a lean young Jock, who smiled as hungrily as Cassius, and
arrived punctually at six every evening to change his book. He looked
delicate, and was, I think, like other regular attendants, on light
duty in the town; in any case he took his bottle of fiction a day
without fail, and once, when it was raining, drained it under my nose
and wanted another. I refused to serve him. Unlike the other topers, he
was a sardonic critic. One night he banged the counter with a book in my
own old line, and the invidious comment:
'He can do what _you_ no can!'