The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-01-08
wAsHINcToN's CURIOSITY SHOP.


just OIL lne curve Oh tAe sidewalk as IL
sweeps around the Peace monument at
the base of the capitol. Everybody sees
it, everybody stops. But the Old man sits
there with red nose poked deep into some
musty E<ume half century old and new
er RACES his frowsy white head For 20
years or more he has sat Just so. For 90
years or more the same "Maiden's Devo-
tional Exercises "Young Ladies' Read
ers. obsolete law books engravings of
Clay, Webster and Calhoun and the gor-
geous colored est Patrick's Dream'-aIl
have lain there gathering dust until the
whole atmosphere is pregnant with the
odor of book decay. The old man is as
musty and yellow-tinged as his books.
The coat huddled over his STOPPING Shout
ders, the hat battered down over his
bristling brows, seem to nave been weaved
long ago out of the stained printed stuff
of the book shop His paie blue eyes have
taken on the blurred strain of the old,
for it has become painful for him to see.
His red cheeks are keeny marked and he
seems dull, stupid and heavy, with stub
pipe ever between his thumbs-but look
out the man has wits. Speaker Reed
has found this out. Mark Twain will be
more chary of free talk the next time he
shambles into the book sellers. These
and a hundred others, congressman, sem
ators, diplomats, generals, those who
walk daily into the halls of the capitol
by way of the avenue, have learned wis
dom in the Old Curiosity Shop Of Wash
ington.
Every morning, if the sun rises the me-
lee of books, magazines and pictures are
taken from the dark, mysterious interior,
piled mound on mound, heap on heap, in
the shelves and spread pell-mell on the
outside stalls or hung in gaudy dilapi-
dated array about the dusty windows 1t
is the Grub street stall rencarnated This
is the daily exhibition which never fails
to attract the public. Soiled engravings
of civil war battles, flashes of Napoleon
at the pass in the Alps, Mary of Scots,
worn brass frames, most homogeneous
mixture of books, religious, scientific,
educational-such funny educational old
school fiction, like 1.-The Household of
Bouverie,' most Incompatible trash
make up the complement of the shop.
The public having been attracted-who
would not be?-gazes its full and invaria-
bly, turns aside in disappointment. There
are so few treasures" And the old man
won't talk. He just sets and sets until
it really seems as though he's stuck One
has to feel for vulnerable points very
cautiously. AS there are fright sides"
to almost every man. so there is a fright
side to the old man. President Lincoln
and "Grimm's Fairy Tales are two keys
and another is How much better it is is
to be an Independent man owning your
own shop like this than to be a govern
ment clerk
His name is Guild and Philadelphia is
his birthplace. His heaviness pronounces
him German, his wit and his temper Irish
He was "wanst the divil of a man." as
Mulvaney says, but that was when he was
in the army. He tells many tales of SOL
der days, once you get him started
Once when Lincoln was up in the ro-
tunda of the capital and canned horse
and tack" were dealt out to the boys of
"a, they. like the boys of '9S, found
Snakes" Guild relates how they marched
double-quick up to the president, drew out
the squirming insects from their crackers,
held them up betwiXt thumbs and fore
fingers, and said to Mr.. Lincoln: Look"
This exhibition has never before been re-
corded
"Ahem." said Mr.. Lincoln this won't
do, boys. You all got emf
"Begorra. sor, don't you see emf
"Why, I'll look into this. You can't be
eating stuff like that
Faith, who said we were a-eating of
it, sor?''
When the volunteer company of which
Guild was member passed in review be-
fore the president their officers were in
desperation. When the men came to pre-
sent arms one would have thought St.
Vitus had seized not only the arms of all
the men, but their guns likewise. The
colonel of the regiment found it neces-
sary to gallop up to Mr.. Lincoln and in
form MIN that the men We're better at
fighting than saluting.
That's all right" responded the presi-
dent. Il was once captain of a volun-
teer company myself and | know how it
is"
After '65 Guild started in mercantile
business, but, gaining no profit, gradually
drifted into what he liked the book shop
1t must have been a pretentious house in
the old days, with it's carved stone bal
cony and sculptured cornices. Here Guild
has lived with his son and his sons
children An Old Curiosity Shop without
a grandchild wouldn't seem natural. This
one had two The old man used to read
"Grimms Fairy Tales" to them every
night year in and year out until they be-
came "grown-ups."
Speaker Reed never fails to greet the
old man as he passes
You see,' says the old man, ''they all
know I've got no axe to grind, amt hunt
ing office and wouldn't take a government
lob IL they presented it. They know that
they can come here and I don't take ad-
vantage of knowing them. Just like my
friend who kept stoves in Lincolns days.
The president would drop in there and
sit for hours at a time to keep away from
the crowd, he said. Reed used to be bit
caustic. l thought at first, and never did
seem to me to go heavy on reading. He is
always fond of joke, Reed is, when he
gives it himself. He isn't like my friend
ingalls,, who never fails to see me when
he's in town. Reed has the humor which
gives but can't take, whereas ingalls, can
both give and take. I'll never forget,
though, how bad Reed wanted some cop
per plates l had" The old mans cheeks
quite puffed out at the recollection.
They were lying out here along like
these books, and every day Reed passed
he'd look at EN- real hard. My price was
81 apiece, and Mr.. Reed thought that was
too much. How're the copper plates?
he'd ask all the time, They lay along
there three or four years, l reckon and
each time Mr.. Reed would look I'd say
up from my book. Two dollars is the
price One day he was with another man
and they both stopped. Reed said, side
ways-like, humping his shoulders: There
they've been, there they'll stay. Never sell
EN- l up from my book-it was the
Turning of a Penny then, a scientific