In Luck at Last by Walter Besant


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The Project Gutenberg EBook of In Luck at Last, by Walter Besant

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net


Title: In Luck at Last

Author: Walter Besant

Release Date: June 25, 2005 [EBook #16129]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN LUCK AT LAST ***




Produced by Bill Tozier, Barbara Tozier, Sankar Viswanathan
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net










IN LUCK AT LAST.




BY WALTER BESANT.






NEW YORK:
GEORGE MUNRO'S SONS, PUBLISHERS,
17 TO 27 VANDEWATER STREET.






CHAPTER I.

WITHIN THREE WEEKS


If everyone were allowed beforehand to choose and select for himself
the most pleasant method of performing this earthly pilgrimage, there
would be, I have always thought, an immediate run upon that way of
getting to the Delectable Mountains which is known as the Craft and
Mystery of Second-hand Bookselling. If, further, one were allowed to
select and arrange the minor details--such, for instance, as the
"pitch" and the character of the shop, it would seem desirable that,
as regards the latter, the kind of bookselling should be neither too
lofty nor too mean--that is to say, that one's ambition would not
aspire to a great collector's establishment, such as one or two we
might name in Piccadilly, the Haymarket, or New Bond Street; these
should be left to those who greatly dare and are prepared to play the
games of Speculation and of Patience; nor, on the other hand, would
one choose an open cart at the beginning of the Whitechapel Road, or
one of the shops in Seven Dials, whose stock-in-trade consists wholly
of three or four boxes outside the door filled with odd volumes at
twopence apiece. As for "pitch" or situation, one would wish it to be
somewhat retired, but not too much; one would not, for instance,
willingly be thrown away in Hoxton, nor would one languish in the
obscurity of Kentish Town; a second-hand bookseller must not be so far
removed from the haunts of men as to place him practically beyond the
reach of the collector; nor, on the other hand, should he be planted
in a busy thoroughfare--the noise of many vehicles, the hurry of quick
footsteps, the swift current of anxious humanity are out of harmony
with the atmosphere of a second-hand bookshop. Some suggestion of
external repose is absolutely necessary; there must be some stillness
in the air; yet the thing itself belongs essentially to the city--no
one can imagine a second-hand bookshop beside green fields--so that
there should be some murmur and perceptible hum of mankind always
present in the ear. Thus there are half-a-dozen bookshops in King
William Street, Strand, which seem to enjoy every possible advantage
of position, for they are in the very heart of London, but yet are not
exposed to the full noise and tumult of that overflowing tide which
surges round Charing Cross. Again, there are streets north of Holborn
and Oxford Street most pleasantly situated for the second-hand
bookseller, and there are streets where he ought not to be, where he
has no business, and where his presence jars. Could we, for instance,
endure to see the shop of a second-hand bookseller established in
Cheapside?

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