said of modern American letters:
"The average popular novel shows on the novelist's part an ignorance of his trade which reminds me of a New England clerk.
"In a New England village I entered the main street department-store one afternoon and said to the clerk at the book-counter:
"'Let me have, please, the letters of Charles Lamb.'
"'Post-office right across the street, Mr. Lamb,' said the clerk, with a naive, brisk smile."
"You never can tell," said a traveling salesman. "Now you'd think that a little New England village, chock full of church influence and higher education, would be just the place to sell a book like 'David Harum,' wouldn't you? Well, I know a man who took a stock up there and couldn't unload one of 'em. He'd have been stuck for fair if he hadn't had a brilliant idea and got the town printer to doctor up the title for him. As it was, he managed to unload the whole lot and get out of town before the first purchaser discovered that 'David's Harum' wasn't quite what he had led himself to suppose."
Remember what Roger Mifflin says: "When you sell a man a book, you don't sell him just three ounces of paper and ink and glue—you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour, and ships at sea by night—there's all heaven and earth in a book."
PENFIELD—"What do you know about Bestseller's new book?"
CRABSHAW—"Nothing at all. I've merely read all the reviews of it."—Life.
MANAGER—"Can't you find some way to make yourself busy around here?"
BOOKISH NEW SALESMAN—"Milton, in his 'Sonnet on Blindness,' says: 'They also serve who only stand and wait.'"
MANAGER—"Yes, but you must keep in mind that Milton's most famous book was about a fellow that lost his job and went to hades."
"What do you think of my library?"
"I was just looking it over and I notice that you were visited by the same book agents who landed me."
"There's a fellow outside with a volume of poems
(The title, I think is 'The Beautiful Gnomes'),
He says it's the best of poetical tomes."
"I'll see him next Christmas," the publisher said.
"There's a gentleman waiting to tell you about
A novel of his, which, without any doubt
(So he says), will make critics with happiness shout."
"Oh, tell him I'm ill or rheumatic—or dead."
"There's also a lady who's just come away
From Russia; she says that the Reds are at bay,
And she's willing to write it at so much a day."
"I've just left for Portugal, China and Mars."
"And then there's a bookseller—looks like a gink—
From somewhere out West; Indiana, I think.
I'll tell him you're out buying authors a drink."
"A bookseller? In with him! Boy, the cigars!"
—Edward Anthony.
CANVASSER—"May I have a few minutes of your time?"
PROSPECT—"Yes, if you will be brief. What can I do for you; I'm a man of few words."
CANVASSER—"Just the man I'm looking for, my specialty is dictionaries."
BOOMERANGS
See Repartee; Retaliation.
BOOSTING
Boost your city, boost your friend,
Boost the lodge that you attend.
Boost the street on which you're dwelling,
Boost the goods that you are selling.
Boost the people 'round about you,
They can't get along without you,
But success will quicker find them,
If they know that you're behind them.
Boost for every forward movement,
Boost for every new improvement,
Boost the man for whom you labor,
Boost the stranger and the neighbor.
Cease to be a chronic knocker,
Cease to be a progress blocker.
If you'd make your city better
Boost it to the final letter.
Boost, and the world boosts with you,
Knock, and you're on the shelf,
For the world gets sick of the one who'll kick
And wishes he'd kick himself.
Boost, for your own achievements,
Boost for the things sublime,
For the one who is found on the topmost round,
Is the Booster every time.
It takes no more time to boost a man than it does to knock him—and think how much pleasanter for everybody.
BORROWERS
Mr. Tucker had unexpectedly come face to face with Mr. Cutting, from whom he had frequently borrowed money.
"Er—aw—what was the denomination of the bill you loaned me?" he asked nervously.
"Episcopalian, I guess," said Mr. Cutting. "At any rate, it keeps Lent very well."
"There's a friend in the outer office waiting for you, sir."
"Here, James, take this $10 and keep it till I come back."
ED—"Have you forgotten you owe me five dollars?"
NED—"No, not yet. Give me time, and I will."
Jenkins was always trying to borrow money, and his friends had begun to avoid him.
One morning he tackled an acquaintance in the street before the latter had a chance to escape.
"I say, old man," began Jenkins, "I'm in a terrible fix. I want some money badly, and I haven't the slightest idea where on earth I'm going to get it from."
"Glad to hear it, my boy," returned the other promptly. "I was afraid that you might have an idea you could borrow it from me."
One of the shrewd lairds of Lanarkshire had evidently experienced the difficulties of collecting money lent to friends.
"Laird," a neighbor accosted him one morning, "I need twenty poonds. If ye'll be guid enough to tak ma note, ye'll hae yere money back agin in three months frae the day."
"Nae, Donald," replied the laird, "I canna do it."
"But, laird, ye hae often done the like fer yere friends."
"Nae, mon, I canna obleege ye."
"But, laird—"
"Will