"Alas!" exclaimed the hapless Abner Skipp, next morning, "it seems as if
nothing was being published this fall except popular novels, and I
obtained an average of less than twenty cents on the last sackload I
took to town, not counting the dead ones which I sold to the junkman."
"If only there were some way of keeping them alive for a few days
longer!" said Mrs. Skipp. "If one could only stimulate the heart action
by injecting strychnine!"
"Or even embalm them," said Abner, sharing his wife's grewsome humor.
"But no; it is impossible to deceive a second-hand bookseller. He seems
to know to the minute when a novel is dead, and declines to turn his
shop into a literary morgue." The poor man sighed. "If my employers
would send me a few volumes of biography, or an encyclopedia, or a set
of Shakespeare, we could easily meet the interest on the mortgage."
"I wish, Abner, that I could be of more help to you," said Mrs. Skipp.
"If I could break myself of the habit of glancing at the last chapter of
a novel before reviewing it, I could do ever so many more. Angelica is
even more thoughtless than I. The poor child declares that some of the
stories look so interesting that she forgets her work completely and
actually begins to read them. As for Grandpa, he always was a great
reader, and consequently has no head at all for reviewing."
"If Harold were a few years older----" mused Abner. "But there, wife, we
must not spend in vain repining the scant hours allotted to us for
sleep. Perhaps the expressman will bring us some scientific books
to-morrow. Quite a number were on Appletree's fall list."
Abner Skipp kissed his wife affectionately, and presently the house was
dark and still. Mrs. Skipp, worn out by the day's work, went quickly to
sleep; but Abner, haunted by the mortgage, passed a restless night.
Several times he fancied he heard a noise in the cellar, as if the
expressman were dumping another ton of books into the bin. At last, just
before dawn, there came a loud thump, as if a volume of Herbert
Spencer's Autobiography had fallen to the floor. Getting out of bed
quietly so that his weary wife should not be disturbed, Abner went to
the cellar stairway and listened.
A clicking sound was distinctly audible, and a faint light gleamed
below.