The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-04-28
IN AN OLD BOOK STORE.
New York Graphic.

would expect to meet in bookstore. He was burly ruffian with fiashy red neckscarf and corduroy jacket He had the jowl of bulldog and eyes like ferret's under his beetling eye- brows. A bull pup, hideously bow legged, followed at his heels as he stalked into well-known book store on Chambers street, yesterday after noon. Yet this man was book buyer. He asked the clerk for a copy of the unabridged edition of Fistiana, and got it for seventy dollars. This rare and edifying work has an account, by rounds, of all the battles of the prize ring from the days of Figg to the en- encounter of Heenan and Savers. It is highly prized.
 In an obscure corner of this store may be met any time all the varieties of bibliomaniacs. Not the millionaire with a book k-buying fad, but book worms and dealers on the lookout for something rare. In this Chambers street shop there are no Elzivirs; the highest price it's possible to pay for a single work is $500. But the plain, everyday stock is sufficient from it's size and variety to attract all sorts of buyers. The dealer, too, is likely to have something new and good in any day, for it is great place to buy and sell second lhand books. There are some fine old classical editions there now-an Ovid printed in 1900, a splen- did Antwerp edition of Xenophon, with date of 1904, and rare collec- tion of old Greek playrights. There is venerable copy of fAristophanes in pawn by a cultivated Englishman stranded in New York. The dealer has had dozen offers for it. The lovers of all rare books are not always the best educated men.
 There are two or three mechanics in New York who have really excellent libraries that their judgment and in- dustry has enabled to collect for one- tenth of what they would sell for. Book dealers have a much keener ap- preciation of the fine points of rare edition than many men who know far more about it's contents.
 As the chief salesman confided these points to the reporter, well-dressed woman came in and said she wanted to buy book. She said she lived in Jersey City, and thought she would like to take home book to her hus- band. What would the dealer recom- mend?
 "How old is your husband, ma6am?" asked the chief clerk, politely.
 "Forty- i've"
 "Is he-ah-jovial and all that, you know, or staid and reflective and phil osophical?"
 "He's wholesale butcher" said she, with the air of a woman who wasn't to be trifled with.
 "Buy him Lambs Tales,'" sug- gested the clerk, absently. Then he hastily added, "I beg pardon"
 Bnt the won an was gone, flouncing through the door with a flushed face and fighting mad expre ssion. She stopped long enough at the office to tell them that no spindle. shanked dude in eyeglasses could advise her 10 buy lamb chops for book, and her hu2 band would come around next day and trample on him. The clerk ought to have been distressed. But just then his off eye lighted on tall, clerical looking man buried in a nobly illus trated copy of the "Heptameron." The clerk tripped across the floor and tapped him on the back. Said he:
 "Sixteen dollars for that book, please. It's no good to us now"
 The man was kleptomaniac. He had cut out an etching from the book with the razor-like edge of ring on g his little finger. He paid his money with good grace, and the clerk chuckled, as he said he had charged him double price, but no doubt he was ahead of the store. He suspected this man, but never caught him before. He went on to say that they lost several thousand dollars every year by books being mutilated. Not all of these men are poor, and in other ways they are perfectly honest. You could trust them in bank vault, but when they get rare old book in their hands an overmastering desire to own 1t leads them to conceal 1t if they can. Some of them go into book store prepared to take anything. The confirmed kleptomaniac is an artist in his line. He works with tiny blade no larger than pin-head, which he conceals under his thumb nails. He is cutting away when he carelessly passes his hand across the page. He is danger ous and difficult ot detection.
 While the clerk was contributing this information in spasms of leisure, he waited on woman who asked for "Moore's Melodies" because she thought it was music book, and told school-teacher where to find his- tory and geography of the Pacific coast. He selected six "Tracts on the |